


Into temptation

by Esinde Nayrall (red_squared)



Series: Into Temptation [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Incest, M/M, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2005-06-21
Updated: 2008-04-27
Packaged: 2017-10-19 16:59:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/203108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_squared/pseuds/Esinde%20Nayrall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius leads. Regulus falls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flesh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flesh/gifts).



> Incomplete WIP songfic, set to the lyrics of 'Into Temptation' from Crowded House's 'Temple of Low Men'.
> 
> Originally posted [**here**](http://red-squared.livejournal.com/18256.html).

_July 1980_

 _You opened up your door  
I couldn’t believe my luck_

“Of course it’s a _problem_ ,” Malfoy is saying patronisingly, “if a man can’t get his wife with child. Less of a problem when you were a child yourself, but you’ve put Hogwarts behind you, now. I’m certain your mother – how is dear Cassiopeia, these days? I’m certain your _mother_ is expecting a child. If only the same were true of Livinia.”

Part of him is screaming to him to draw his wand and demand that Malfoy take the words back, but the rest of him just giggles.

“She’s still a virgin,” he whispers confidentially. “Livinia, not Mother,” he adds for clarification and then wonders why he said anything at all. It’s not exactly something he’s proud of, and certainly nothing that _Malfoy_ need know anything about.

“That _was_ understandable,” Malfoy continues, still in the same insufferable drawl. “The two of you were wed while _you,_ at least, were still at school. But you’re of age and you have responsibilities. To your wife, your family and the rest of pureblood community.”

“I know what my responsibilities are, thank you,” he says politely, regretting having agreed to meet Malfoy for a drink.

“Perhaps that’s the trouble,” Malfoy offers, glancing around the smoke filled room.

He follows Malfoy’s gaze, wondering what he's supposed to be looking at and then letting his thoughts lapse into whether the wood panels on the walls are solid panels set against stone, or whether they rotate to let you into a room or passage beyond.

“You’re the last of your name,” Malfoy continues, after taking a leisurely sip from his snifter. “So much pressure on such young shoulders, to provide your House with an heir. No wonder you’re incapable of performing the necessary - ”

“I don’t want to discuss it,” he spits out furiously, surprised at his own vehemence, and feeling far from playful.

His tutors for etiquette and social discourse taught him over a dozen techniques for subtly steering the topic of conversation away from vulgar or inappropriate subjects, and not _one_ of them involved an admission that the subject was distasteful and that the other conversant should know better than to bring it up.

“No?” Malfoy asks, unabashed. “What shall we discuss, then? You asked earlier about my membership to this club,” Malfoy continues, gesturing about the room with one hand. “Shall we discuss your induction, instead? I can send for Rosier and Nott, at once.”

He pulls a face before he can stop himself.

“Or we can continue to discuss the matter at hand,” Malfoy says with a smirk. “I’m offering to help, Black.”

“Help. How can you help?” he says bitterly.

“Well, I’m assuming it’s a question of not being able to - ”

“Maybe it’s got nothing to do with not being able and everything to do with not wanting to,” he interjects, before Malfoy can finish his sentence.

“Yes, there is always that,” Malfoy says smoothly. “It’s quite the popular topic of conversation among The Membership, you should be warned.”

“What is?”

“The extent to which you take after your brother. _Sirius_ ,” Malfoy adds unnecessarily, as though Regulus has so many embarrassing brothers that he needs to be told which one he’s being painfully reminded of.

“I don’t understand.”

“Your brother has yet to marry,” Malfoy says, with an air of exasperation. “He’s lived with Lupin for almost three years now, and that by itself would mean nothing, except that there is the matter of…”

“Yes?”

“To be perfectly blunt Black, he’s shown about as much interest in women as you have in your wife.”

“Oh,” he says quietly, while his mind rages at him again for not drawing his wand and defending his honour. “But you can help?”

Malfoy stands and smiles confidently, reaching for his wand and tapping it against one of the floor-to-ceiling wood panels that swings open. Beyond it, he can hear laughter and it’s been so _long_ since he’s heard laughter like that – laughter that isn’t mocking or bitter but is joyous and warm – that he stands immediately.

Malfoy’s eyes alight on the barely touched glass at his side.

“Finish your drink, Black.”

~~*~~

 _You in your new blue dress  
Taking away my breath_

“ – would never happen to him,” he confides, leaning heavily on Malfoy’s shoulder as they make their way through the dimly lit corridor.

Of course it would never happen to Sirius. Sirius never married. Sirius was the _clever_ one, every one always said so. _Ah yes, Regulus Black, Sirius Black’s younger brother. Well, if you’re as clever as he is, we’ll have high expectations of you, Mr Black._

“You still love him, don’t you?” Malfoy asks.

He has the feeling he might already have said something along those lines, but seals his lips just in case. The Membership probably won’t take too kindly to his feeling sympathetic to his renegade brother.

They’re likely to be out-right _appalled_ at the thought that –

“Wait here a moment, Black,” Malfoy says, as they turn through a torch-lit arch leading into a semi-circular room with eight doors set around the arc.

“Where are we?”

“Just a little farther,” Malfoy urges, tapping his wand against one of the doors. The door responds by melting away so that they can slip in. “Leave your cloak there,” Malfoy adds, bewitching a coat-stand to walk closer to them. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

Not for the first time, he considers leaving, but he’s not sure he can manage the Apparition incantation. His head is clouded and he doesn’t want to risk splinching himself – there’s no telling what Malfoy will demand in return for whatever part of himself he leaves behind by accident.

The laughter is still there around him, everywhere. It doesn’t sound as though the laughter is _at_ anything, rather the laughter seems to come for the sheer pleasure of laughing.

“ – want him again already? I thought we agreed to not more than three times a month.” He doesn’t recognise the voice.

“Yes, that was when the price was six hundred galleons,” Malfoy says, from somewhere out of the room.

“Let me see if I understand correctly. You want more and in exchange, you’re prepared to pay more? What did you have in mind?”  
Malfoy’s response is lost in the sound of whispering and murmuring and soft laughter coming through the walls, but the derisive laughter of whoever it is that Malfoy is talking to can be heard clearly. “Is that all? When there are two of you, this time? I think you can do better than that. One thousand galleons, and only tonight.”

 _One thousand galleons? What could anyone do in one night that costs a thousand galleons? Is it a cure for… whatever’s wrong with me? **Is** there something wrong with me?_

He’s fond of his wife, but that is about as far as his affection for her runs and every time he is alone with her, his thoughts are always with –

“With the same conditions as before?”

“Of course,” he hears the other voice reply. “You’re not to hurt him or leave a mark on him and if you ask him to do anything he doesn’t agree to, your time with him stops at once and we’ll return your money.”

His head is starting to ache and he drapes himself along the chaise lounge in the shadows. It’s hard to make out colours in the low light, but he’s certain the room is furnished in dark greens or blues or perhaps both. There are thick, wax tapers set around the chaise, and probably more hidden in the darkness of the rest of the room, but… _Merlin’s name, I don’t even know if I could risk a simple incendio spell without setting the room on fire._

“I’ve arranged things,” Malfoy says, entering the room again and closing the door behind him. “We’ll soon get to the bottom of why you’ve been unable to consummate your marriage.”

“You’ve made your point, there’s no need to keep _on_ about - ”

“You’re quite right, it _is_ tiresome of me to harp on. Perhaps we can talk of more pleasant things, such as your induction into The Membership.”

“I take it we’re not just talking about the access to the facilities in this establishment,” he says cautiously, turning to face Malfoy.

“What makes you think that?” Malfoy asks, lighting some of the tapers in the room, replacing the darkness with a soft light. “It’s not as if you even know the extent of the facilities available to you in this establishment. Which makes it quite rude of you to keep knocking back the invitation each time it’s extended.”

As more of the tapers are lit, he’s aware of the rest of the room. There’s a door at the opposite side, set against the curving back wall of the room. Right in the middle of the room, though, is the biggest bed he’s ever seen. He’s never seen a bed before that didn’t have at least _one_ of its four sides pressed up against a wall.

It looks odd on its own in the middle of the room – like an island of silver and green samite adrift on the carpet.

“Rosier believes we’re wasting our time with you,” Malfoy continues. “He doesn’t think I should have to convince you to petition for entry. The others agree with him to differing degrees. Most of them are puzzled as to why you didn’t join as soon as you finished school, but I spoke in your defence. Told them that you had other responsibilities to see to first. You won’t have the luxury of that defence forever, Black.”

“Why is it so important that I join?” Nobody has said anything outright, but he’s certain this has something to do with Lord Voldemort, and he’s _almost_ positive that every one of The Membership is also a Death Eater.

“You know very well why, it’s no good playing disingenuous with me,” Malfoy says, removing his own cloak and adding it to the coat stand. “We can’t afford to have a family with the reputation and excellent standing yours does refuse to join. It will send entirely the wrong message to all concerned.”

 _So what_ , is what he wants to say. _I didn’t ask for any of this, and if it were Sirius here, as head of the House of Black instead of me, you wouldn’t dare talk to him like that._

“I haven’t refused,” he says cautiously, wishing that he knew what was expected of him. “What does the induction involve?”

“If you’re going to lie down, you’ll be more comfortable here,” Malfoy says, gesturing towards the bed. He hesitates, since he has a feeling that if he lies on the bed, Malfoy will get in with him. “No?” Malfoy laughs softly to himself. “Really, Black you’re going to have to get better at knowing a good thing when you see it. The offer might not be made again.”

“A good thing when I see it,” he says, deadpan. “And that’s you, is it? You still haven’t told me what I’d have to do if - ”

“It’s always about cost with you, isn’t it?” Malfoy says, with a put upon sigh. Malfoy moves closer to the chaise, standing over him and looking down. “What about the benefits? You’re bound to find the costs insurmountable if you consider them out of context.”

“You’ve said very little about either,” he says, trying not to jump in shock when Malfoy reaches a hand to his face.

He’s not used to people coming this close to him – most people know him, or his station, well enough to maintain a respectful distance. In fact, Malfoy’s face is alarmingly close to his own, and he’s unspeakably relieved when there is a loud rap at the door.

“Enter,” Malfoy commands. “You wanted to know about the benefits,” he continues in a much softer, more intimate tone. “This is one of them right now.”

The door opens and someone enters, their features impossible to make out because of the light behind them, but he can see that whoever it is – and the silhouette looks like a man’s – is wearing something gauzy, suffusing his outline with a translucent, blue glow.

The silhouette moves into the light, and his mouth goes dry.

~~*~~

 _The cradle is soft and warm  
It couldn’t do me no harm_

“A Polyjuice Brothel?” he hisses softly, as the whore stands in the light, awaiting further instruction. “I thought they were outlawed in the eighteenth century.”

“We make our own laws here,” Malfoy says, while the fingers on his face move up and into his hair, forcing him to look at the whore that wears his brother’s face. “You,” Malfoy says, addressing the whore. “Approach.”

Whoever it is in the blue robe, he – or she – must know Sirius well, because the walk, the demeanour is too perfect. He – she, it – kneels in front of him with eyes the same pale grey as his own, flickering over him and looking, checking, appraising.

“Why does it look like Sirius?” he asks, edging back onto the chaise and away from the whore’s unnerving gaze. “Answer me!”

“Isn’t it what you want? I told you, we make our own rules here,” Malfoy says. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting him the way you do.”

“How do you know about that? I never told anyone,” he says softly, wonderingly. For some reason, it borders on outrage that the likes of _Malfoy_ should know how much he loves his brother when Sirius himself doesn’t know. “Anyway,” he says, aware that he’s said too much but unable to stop talking at the same time. “That’s not really him.”

The whore’s robe is made out of some scandalously sheer, blue material that leaves nothing to the imagination, and yet he can’t help but stare. It might not be Sirius behind those cold, marble-grey eyes, but it _is_ Sirius’ body.

Malfoy laughs behind him. “You should get used to the idea that when you’re here, you can do whatever you want, have whoever you want… Once you join, you might even have him for real.”

He runs his gaze over the whore, searching for a flaw, for something that will separate this _thing_ on its knees in front of him from his brother, but apart from the submissive pose, there is nothing. Even the spell of submission is broken when the whore looks at Malfoy and then at the door with clear meaning.

“Could I have some time alone with it?”

He doesn’t need to be able to see Malfoy to know the other man is hesitating.

“I’ll be back in ten minutes,” Malfoy says, sounding displeased.

“Be sure to shut the door behind you,” he calls, hearing the catch slam into place.

“Is it true?” the whore asks him, with a piercingly direct stare.

“Is what true?”

“About your brother. Is that why I’m here? Malfoy’s bought me for you until dawn. What have you done to deserve that?”

“I’ve no idea,” he says wonderingly, taking in the man in front of him.

“Is it true?” the whore presses, insistently.

“Yes,” he says sadly, again unable to keep the admission to himself. There is something comforting about being able to say the words to Sirius’ face even if he can’t say them to Sirius. “I wish I could talk to him, he’d know what to do.”

“Know what to do?” The whore moves closer and rests a hand on his knee. “About what?”

He _shouldn’t_ be confiding all of this to the whore, the whore who could be _anybody_ disguised as his brother, but the words fall from his lips before he can stop them, about how awful his marriage is, about Mother’s expectations, Livinia’s expectations, how he’s fairly certain that Rosier wants him to follow Voldemort and that it’s up to Malfoy to talk him into it, and everybody wants an answer _now_ , and he doesn’t know what to tell any of them, and he just wishes he had his brother back because then he wouldn’t have to do it all on his own.

“He’s not coming back,” the whore tells him kindly. “If he did, _he’d_ have to do all of those things. You wouldn’t wish that on him, would you?”

“No, but _I_ could do all of that if he was with me,” he confides shamefully. “I’d do anything to get him back.” The whore looks startled. “That’s bad, isn’t it? I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t want him like that, but I do.”

“There are worse things,” the whore says gently.

 _Yes, you’re probably made to **do** worse things twenty times a night, he thinks. Especially if Malfoy has anything to do with it._ He can vaguely recall some talk of ‘rules’ earlier in the evening, but the thought is far away.

“I’m sorry,” he says, not sure what he’s apologising for. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Who do you want me to be?”

“I want you to be Sirius,” he says in a small voice, ashamed of admitting it, but relieved to be able to tell someone at last.

“Then call me Sirius,” the wh- Sirius says, smiling and shifting closer.

Sirius’ face is close enough to kiss, but he leaves it to Regulus to close the distance between them and seal their mouths together, and it feel surreal, because he knows this isn’t Sirius, but there is still a sharp, shiver of satisfaction that he’s finally doing something he’s wanted to do for years.

What makes it more surreal is that even though he’s in an unfamiliar club, and Malfoy’s likely to come back at any minute, and Livinia expected him home an hour ago, with his brother’s arms around him and his brother’s lips against his own, he’s never felt safer in all his life.

~~*~~

 _You’re showing me how to give into temptation,  
Knowing full well the Earth will rebel_

“Merlin’s name, is that all the farther you’ve got?”

He doesn’t turn around at the sound of the familiar sneering voice, because he his robes are around his waist, and Sirius’ fingers are working Regulus’ leggings down his thighs, pausing to kiss every inch of flesh he exposes.

“That feels wonderful,” he tells Sirius, deliberately not answering Malfoy. The only sign Sirius gives that he’s heard is to lick him, along the inside of his thigh, the most sensitive part.

“Can’t you be trusted to do anything correctly, Black?”

He wishes Malfoy would shut up, or go away, or stop _interfering_ so he can enjoy Sirius’ attentions. He’s about to answer back when Sirius rubs his palm up and down his shin, a calming, reassuring, ‘leave this to me’ gesture.

“Oh I don’t know, Lucius,” Sirius says, speaking the words into Regulus’ thigh and sending shudders of pure pleasure straight to his groin. “We’re further along than you are.”

“I bought him for your pleasure tonight, not mine,” Malfoy says haughtily, pointedly addressing Regulus rather than the whore.

“You didn’t say that before,” he says, closing his eyes and wriggling back into the chaise as Sirius uses his teeth to undo the sash on his robe.

“Must everything be spelled out for you, so?” He shivers as his robes fall open, only half listening to what Malfoy says. “He’s yours until dawn.”

“So you’ll do everything I say?” he asks Sirius, running his fingers down the other man’s neck, to the collar of the filmy blue robe, tugging it open. Sirius locks eyes with him and nods. “The real Sirius wouldn’t,” he says, feeling depressed for some reason. Malfoy sighs in disgust behind him. “You can have him back,” he tells Malfoy, annoyed. _Sorry for wasting your money, but this wasn’t **my** idea_.

“What would the real Sirius do?” Sirius asks urgently, climbing onto the chaise and holding himself above Regulus on hands and knees.

“I don’t know,” he says, aware of Malfoy out of the corner of his eye. “He probably wouldn’t even do what you’re doing now,” he adds, because Sirius is lowering his face to Regulus’ bare chest and dropping the softest of kisses onto it.

“What would you want him to do?”

Sirius bites gently at one of his nipples, while rubbing his knee against Regulus’ groin at the same time, and it takes him a little while before he can do much more than moan in reply.

“I think I’d want him to make love to me,” he says, more certain of himself now.

For all of the other doubts that plague him daily, _this_ is something he knows well, something he sees in his mind’s eye every night before he curls up to sleep in his huge, empty bed in the room across the corridor from his wife’s.

“To play with me first,” he adds, lifting his upper-body so Sirius can work his robes free. “Play with me until I’m ready to burst with want. I’d do anything he asked, give myself up to him in anyway he wanted, but he’ll tease me anyway because he always does. Because he’ll want to be _sure_.”

When he opens his eyes again, Malfoy is standing over them, naked, working Sirius’ thin, blue garment off his shoulders. He manages to keep from frowning at the way Malfoy is touching Sirius, working his hands over Sirius’ flesh in smoothing circles, and pulling him off Regulus. He shivers in the sudden cold and watches as Malfoy carries Sirius over to the bed, following only because Sirius extends an arm out to him, beckoning.

He slips free of his leggings and pants before following after them, climbing onto the bed next to where Malfoy throws Sirius down, and stretching out next to the other man.

“And then when he _is_ sure,” he continues, as Sirius coaxes him into another kiss, “he’ll slide into me, and use me, slow and hard, but pull out of me at the last minute so I can watch.”

“You want to see him come?”

“I want to see what I do to him. I want to know that it’s because of me.”

“You want him to fuck you?” Sirius whispers, running his hands along Regulus’ arms, soothing and petting and protective.

He would never put it as crudely as that, but he finds himself nodding fervently. “ _Yes_ , oh yes,” he says, again aware of Malfoy out of the corner of his eye. There’s a small set of draws next to the bed and Malfoy is rummaging through one of them intently, deaf to their conversation. “Sirius never would, but would you? Please?” he adds, when Sirius hesitates. “Whatever Malfoy offered, I’ll double it.”

“Decided to join us again, have you?” Malfoy asks, looking up after having retrieved something.

“It’s not something I do often,” Sirius whispers, moving his hands up to Regulus face, brushing his hair behind his ears.

“Please?”

“I don’t do it very well,” Sirius says, with a quick, sad smile. “I’d hurt you.”

“ _Please_ ,” he begs. “If I like it, I’ll know I’m like him, that I can’t be married anymore, that I won’t ever have children. I need to be certain. I need to _know_.”

“You’re a stronger man than I am,” Malfoy says, addressing Sirius while reaching for Regulus. “Not many who’d be able to turn away young Regulus Black, especially when he begs so prettily. Still, if _you_ won't see to him...”

 _No,_ he thinks in alarm, pressing closer into Sirius as Malfoy works a hand between Regulus’ legs. _That wasn’t for **you** to hear. I don’t want **you** to fuck me_ , he wants to shriek, as Malfoy turns him over onto Sirius, his knees folded on either side of Sirius’ thighs, and his hips in the air.

“It’s all right,” Sirius whispers, as Regulus buries his face into Sirius’ shoulder. “He won’t hurt you. He knows what I’ll do to him if he does. It’s all right, you’ll be fine. Push down into me,” Sirius urges, and he obeys, grinding down between Sirius’ legs, feeling their cocks rub against each other, thick and stiff and wet. “There, isn’t that nice?”

“Mmm,” he manages, repeating the motion as Sirius works a hand between their bodies. “ _Oh_ , that - ” Sirius does something with his fingers, just at the base of Regulus’ cock, as Malfoy works a finger into him.

“Does that feel nice or does it hurt?” Sirius asks, capturing Regulus mouth with his own, swallowing his moans and preventing him from answering as Malfoy stretches him wide.

“Both,” he says, once the initial shock wears off.

“Relax,” Sirius urges, the hand between their bodies gently working his cock while Sirius’ other hand strokes his hips, his sides, his buttocks and thighs. “It will feel _amazing_.”

Malfoy is whispering something to him too, but he isn’t paying much attention, because he wants to pretend that it is Sirius behind him, Sirius entering him, and so he closes his eyes and concentrates only on Sirius’ voice telling him to relax, Sirius’ voice telling him not to be frightened, Sirius’ voice telling him that he is the most beautiful thing Sirius has ever seen.

He is so lost in the spell that is Sirius that it comes as a surprise when Malfoy’s fingers are removed and replaced with the blunt head of Malfoy’s cock. In that first thrust, his eyes open in shock and even then, everything’s all right because it might be Malfoy who shoves into him and causes him to lose his balance, but it is Sirius who is waiting to catch him.


	2. 2

_Into temptation_

“Regulus? Regulus, come on, wake up.” Someone is shaking him by the shoulder, more and more roughly, more and more urgently. “ _Regulus_.”

“What - ” he covers a yawn with one hand, remembering where he fell asleep. “What’s the matter?”

“You need to get up, come on, out of bed and get dressed,” Si- the _whore_ tells him, fully dressed albeit still wearing Sirius’ face.

He glances blearily around the room. All of his clothing is scattered around it. It makes a marked contrast to Malfoy’s attire, which is laid out in a neat pile next to the chaise, ready to be donned again in all its crease-free splendour.

“What time is it?”

“Well past time for you to go. Quickly,” Sirius says, hauling him into a sitting position. “I did everything I could to wear him out, but he’s not going to sleep like that for long.”

He looks around the enormous bed, to where Malfoy is sprawled out naked, clearly exhausted. Lazily, Regulus reaches for his wand and casts _stupefy_ on Malfoy’s prone figure before settling back down amongst the massive pillows.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Sirius says, sounding frustrated. “Leave that sort of thing to me, all right?”

He can feel his drowsiness dissipate, replaced quickly by a sense of unease at Sirius’ tone.

“Listen to me,” Sirius says urgently, “you need to cast another spell with that wand at once. If someone uses _priori incantatem…_ ”

Frowning, he swishes his wand and casts _lumos_ , lighting every single candle in the room at the same time.

“You need to go, and you need to go now. Can you Apparate?”

He shakes his head slowly. “My head feels strange. I can’t think clearly.”

Sirius hisses in frustration. “They put something in your drink,” he says with certainty, reaching for Regulus’ wand and using it to summon Regulus’ clothing. He blinks as his clothing leaps towards the other man. Something feels… _That shouldn’t_ … “A potion to loosen your inhibitions, and slow your thoughts. They needed you to speak freely.”

He wonders abruptly how he is going to take his wand back from the false Sirius if the whore decides he wants to keep it. _My wand shouldn’t work for anybody else…_

“Where are you taking me?”

“Somewhere safe,” Sirius says, helping him to get dressed.

“There’s nowhere safe,” he says, laughing at the hopelessness of it all.

“There’s London,” Sirius offers, helping him with his boots.

“ _London’s_ not safe,” he says, half to himself. _Nowhere is. They’ll find me wherever I go and they won’t leave me be unless I give them what they want._

“No,” Sirius whispers soothingly, making him realise he must have said that last bit out loud. “You’ll be safer there than here.” He pulls a face at that, but burrows into Sirius’ arms, wanting the comfort of the other man’s warmth. “I said ‘safer’, not more pleasant,” Sirius laughs, pulling him to his feet and turning away to lead him to the door.

“Couldn’t I stay here with you?” he asks plaintively. “I’d give up safe for pleasant.”

Sirius turns to face him, looking startled. “Are things really so bad with your wife? I thought it was just Malfoy exaggerating. You don’t really -”

“I can’t,” he says, stepping closer to Sirius and nuzzling into him once more. “I can’t with her, because I don’t want… I’m not… I never…”

“It’s all right,” Sirius tells him firmly, holding him close and rocking him gently. “You don’t have to say if you don’t want to.”

“I love him,” he whispers, closing his eyes as he does. “I want to…with him, so I can’t with my- with _Livinia_ ,” he confides in a voice that won’t stop shaking. “But _she_ doesn’t want to,” he continues, because now that he’s started, he can’t stop, and he _knows_ that this isn’t Sirius, that this isn’t really his brother but he simply doesn’t _care_ because it’s been so long since anybody showed any interest in what he thought or how he felt. “She thinks I’m disgusting for expecting her to… Everyone makes out like it’s my fault, but she doesn’t want to either. And she won’t ever, because I’m dis-”

“You’re not disgusting,” Sirius interrupts gently, turning him slightly and leading them to the door once more. “I wish that you could see yourself the way everybody else sees you. You’re clever, and gorgeous, and witty, and -”

“I don’t care about how everybody else sees me,” he snaps. “There’s only one person who matters, and he _hates_ me.”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Sirius responds, not wasting time asking who he means. “He thinks about you everyday.”

It takes a while for the significance of those words to sink in, but by the time they’re on the other side of the door and in the strange, semi-circular room once more, he realises something he should have realised much sooner.

“You meet with him. You’ve met with him recently. You _must_ do, for the potion.” And he knows he’s right, because Sirius – the false Sirius, the _whore_ – looks at him in surprise, startled that he’s worked it out. “I want to see him.”

“Regulus -”

“I’m not leaving until I do.”

“You have to go _now_ ,” the whore tells him urgently, wearing the exact expression Sirius used to when he wanted to smack his younger brother for being a brat.

“No! You’re supposed to do as I say until -” he cuts off abruptly as the whore reaches for his hand and Apparates both of them onto the footpath in front of his town house.

“Regulus,” the whore says softly, reaching for the latch to the gate and pushing it open. “Believe me when I say that there is someone out there for you. Someone who will love you fiercely, who will fall asleep thinking of you and wake seeking you out, who would put herself in your place if anybody tried to hurt you, who will hold you when you’re frightened, and never once acknowledge your shame, and who will love you so wholly you’ll wonder how you managed without her. Or… or _him_.”

“But it’s not Livinia,” he says impatiently because surely that should be obvious, and surely he is _entitled_ to want his brother in the way he does, as _much_ as he does, when all of the things the whore has said are true of how he feels about his brother.

And of how he wishes Sirius felt about him.

“No,” the whore concedes sadly, guiding him through the gate and closing the latch. “And I’m sorry for that, because it _should_ be her, but Regulus… _Regulus_ ,” the whore says insistently, reaching for his face through the gate and tilting his face up so that he can’t look away. The whore presses a kiss to his forehead and steps away from the gate to Apparate. “That someone _is_ out there for you somewhere, but you won’t find her – or him – at the Club.”

“You’re wrong,” he says, realising something and hoping that whatever it was Malfoy slipped into his drink won’t prevent him from remembering it in the morning. “You’re _wrong_ ,” he says again. “I _will_ find that person at the stupid Club,” he adds quietly, addressing the empty pre-dawn air in front of the gate.

Where his brother was standing a moment ago.

~~*~~

 _A muddle of nervous words  
Could never amount to betrayal_

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” he says, trying to keep the words from sounding curt and forcing himself to relax against the wall.

He’s sent at least six owls, and Sirius hasn’t replied to a single one. Of course, Sirius never replied to the invitations Regulus sent him for his coming of age ball, his betrothal _or_ his wedding, but after the last time he saw his brother – through the bars of the main gate to the Estate House, he thought things had changed.

 _He doesn’t know that you know it was him. He thinks you were fooled._

Which led him back to the Club, back to request Malfoy’s assistance and being told that the price for another session with the ‘polyjuice prostitute’ would involve a serious discussion about his Induction into Membership.

He still can’t remember what was actually done to him on Friday. He’d remembered Sirius’ warning about what was slipped into his drink, but it was difficult to refuse when it was made clear that until he drained the goblet in front of him, he would be permitted no further.

After that…

He can remember speaking his vows, but not the means they used to bind him to them – if indeed they did.

He can remember feeling dazedly surprised when one of the Members doffed their close-fitting white mask, revealing the smiling face of Barty – his best friend and the Department for Magical Law Enforcement’s only son.

The events of the day after were slightly less hazy, because he can remember working a complicated spell on all sales of a particular magazine he picked up at random in a Muggle tobacco shop. Every copy of that magazine was Transfigured into a port-key, spelled to come into effect half an hour after the magazine was purchased. And after…he can remember the doors of the Club being flung open for him, being dragged to sit in the wood-panelled Smoking Room with the other Members, and having them raise their goblets to his success as Muggles were unwittingly port-keyed around the world.

He can remember the evening of the same day, because a ball was held in his honour at the Rosiers’ property in Yorkshire, and he can remember how, when his wife asked why a ball was being held in his honour, all he could do was smile because he couldn’t be certain whether she was a Member or not.

He can remember losing track of his wife quite early in the night, having Malfoy lead him down to the wine cellar in the Rosiers’ Estate House, being manhandled up against one of the shelves, and having their moans drowned out by the sound of bottle after bottle falling to the floor and shattering with every thrust.

Sunday… He can remember sleeping all through Sunday after arriving home without Livinia at five o’clock in the morning or near enough as made no difference.

And now it is Monday evening. Earlier in the day, his cousin and her husband invited him to join them in their petty Muggle-baiting, and he decided right then that he wasn’t doing a single damn thing more that any of the Membership wanted until he got what he’d paid for.

 _Sirius._

It was easier to refuse the offered drink _this_ time, but that caused problems of its own... _No one ever told me that it is almost as hard to pretend to be giddy without finishing my drink as it is to pretend to be sober having finished the wretched thing._

Following Malfoy along the hallway towards the semi-circular room once more, he asks as playfully as he can, “Can I have my reward now?” Reaching for Malfoy’s shoulder, he spins the other man around to face him. “It’s been three days, and you did _say_ ,” he says, in his best wheedling voice. Casting an eye on the fireplace along the room’s only non-curving wall, he casts _incendio_ on the logs stacked in the hearth. “Will you make the call?”

“There are other ways of celebrating your Induct-”

 _No more arguing._

“I know there are. I’ve had enough of them,” he says, curtly.

 _Sirius._

“I meant just between you and -” Malfoy says, reaching a hand out to cup the side of Regulus’ face.

 _No! Now!_

“Make the call,” he says firmly, pulling out of Malfoy’s reach.

It is an effort to keep the tone of command out of his voice, and Malfoy is looking at him curiously before blessedly, _blessedly_ turning to the fire.

“You should wait in one of the rooms,” Malfoy says, reaching for the Floo powder.

He does so, approaching one of the doors, which melts to let him through when he reaches a hand to it. Once he’s through, he presses an ear to the wall, listening for the voices on the other side.

“…wait a moment? I only just got home,” Regulus can hear Sirius saying.

Someone else – not Malfoy – replies, “I haven’t seen you in five days, and you’re saying I can’t even-”

“ _You_ ,” Sirius’ voice is warm, and there is laughter in both voices as they speak to one another, probably unaware that their Floo is still active after Sirius returned home, “can do anything you like with me. _After_ dinner.”

“Lupin,” Malfoy calls firmly. The walls are so thin, he can hear the fingers of one of Malfoy’s gloved hands drumming against the mantle impatiently.

He’s heard enough to know that he remembered correctly – it really _was_ Sirius who’d kissed him and stroked him and held him the first time Malfoy used him. He feels relief at that, but there is a thought that he can’t shake no matter how hard he tries.

 _Why would Sirius have anything to do with Malfoy? And why does Lupin need to agree to it?_

Malfoy has clearly timed the call based on his knowledge of when Sirius finishes work. It’s the only time the wards protecting the apartment Sirius shares with his Mudblood are likely to weaken enough for them to Floo through. It doesn’t sound as though they’ve accepted the call, but Malfoy will still be able to hear them. He hopes they have the sense to be careful what they say in the room with the main Floo in it.

“ _After_ dinner, I’m going to put you to bed,” Lupin’s words are muffled by his laughter, and then he can hear Sirius gasp sharply. “No arguing, you’re barely on your feet as it is.”

“It’s all right, there’s no need to look at me like that. I’ll be _fine_.”

“ _Bed_ ,” Lupin repeats. “I bet you haven’t slept the whole time, have you?”

“Remus, I’m all right. You’ll be all right tomorrow, you’ll definitely have Padfoot with you.”

“ _Lupin!_ ” Malfoy barks out irritably, no better used to being kept waiting than Regulus himself is.

“Remus…” Sirius calls, much more softly than before but still loud enough to be heard through the Floo.

“What is it?” Lupin calls back.

“What do _you_ think?” Malfoy drawls lazily, settling back into his characteristic insouciance now that he has their attention. “I’m certainly not calling for the pleasure of hearing your voice.”

“No? You call through a considerable number of times for someone who doesn’t enjoy hearing my voice,” Lupin says. “I thought we established last time that you couldn’t call on a whim.”

“ _I_ thought that what we established last time was that I could have him as often as I wanted, provided I was willing to pay,” Malfoy says, reducing everything to a question of price in that vulgar manner he has.

“Not tonight, I’m afraid,” Lupin replies.

He wonders if Sirius is still there, next to Lupin or under him or in his arms, listening as his lover negotiates. _Why does he let the Mudblood treat him like that_? He wonders what Sirius – or Lupin, for that matter – would reply if he knew it was really Regulus buying him for the night.

Malfoy ignores Lupin’s rejection, suggesting smoothly, “We agreed to one thousand galleons the last time. I thought we should offer at least as much this time. To begin with.”

“The answer’s no,” comes the reply, Lupin’s voice sounding short and curt now.

“Yes, I thought it might be,” Malfoy says, sounding untroubled. “Such a shame your Black’s such a talented little slut. If he wasn’t quite so clever with his tongue, I wouldn’t dream of offering another two hundred gall- ”

“No, not for all the gold in the world” Lupin says apologetically, but firmly. “He’s mine tonight.”

“Such greed,” Malfoy _tuts_ reprovingly. “It’s really not fair, Lupin, that you hoard that young man to yourself. What about tomorrow night, then? For fifteen hundred galleons?”

 _Tomorrow night? But I want to see Sirius **now**_ , he thinks petulantly, trying not to reach a hand up to touch the throbbing in his left arm. _What if Sirius told Lupin about what happened last time? What if Lupin decides he’s not letting Sirius come because I might be here, too?_ The thought makes him uneasy.

“I could offer twice what I paid last time,” Malfoy drawls smoothly. “I doubt you’d refuse _that_. More money than you’ll ever see in your entire scruffy life, I would think.”

“Surely you’ve better things to spend the money on, Malfoy?” Lupin asks, not sounding polite at all. “For the last time, we’re not open for business tonight. _Or_ tomorrow night. Perhaps the night after tha-”

“You’re right, there are far better uses I could put two thousand galleons to,” Malfoy says agreeably. “For instance, I could probably afford to hire a top-quality Spell-smith to break through the wards of your shabby flat, come there and _take_ him for myself and still have change left over to keep him properly.”

He winces, wondering why Malfoy feels the need to be so _crude_ about the entire transaction – reeling off amounts as if he’s simply purchasing a new robe.

 _Prat._

It is clearly the wrong thing to say, because the next he can hear of Lupin sounds as though the Mudblood has come through the Floo.

“You just try it,” Lupin says fiercely. Regulus alters the charm on the door so he can see out without being seen himself. “This isn’t about you, or your needs, you stuck-up bastard.” Malfoy’s face goes carefully blank. “This is the first he’s been home in six days. The first I’ve seen him in more than five, because _someone_ thought it would be amusing to Transfigure every, single copy of this week’s _The Economist_ into Portkeys, and send the Muggles who bought it hither and yon.”

He rolls his eyes at Lupin’s outrage, returning the door to its opaque state. While he’s not best pleased to hear how tired Sirius is, he wishes that Lupin would understand that it could have been so much worse than it actually was. He had to come up with _something_ for his Induction, and this was a damn sight less malicious compared with what some of the other Members wanted to do. _And_ he’d managed to limit the spell to one magazine in one city.

“Every single Healer has been run off his or her feet since it started on Friday. He hasn’t slept since then, he hasn’t eaten at all today, and he is in _no_ condition for your stupid games tonight.”

“Two hours, then,” Malfoy says evenly, as though he’s the one doing them a favour. Perhaps he imagines that he is. “If he’s been on his feet for six days, I don’t see why he can’t spend another two hours on his back,” Malfoy elaborates, which is quite rich coming from someone who’s probably never exerted himself in his life. “I’ll return him to you before nightfall, but otherwise, the same conditions as before. Either tonight, or tomorrow night.”

There is silence for so long, that he thinks that Lupin has simply left without replying, but then he hears the Mudblood say, “Two thousand galleons for one night, would make it four hundred galleons for two hours.”

“Done,” Malfoy says, with an air of finality. “Make him presentable, won’t you? It wouldn’t do to spend that much money on someone who came in here reeking of an emergency ward.”

“I’ll be back for him in two hours,” Lupin says, sounding fed-up.

“Yes, I’m sure you will.”

He moves away from the door quickly, sitting on the edge of the bed and once again trying not to clutch at his arm.

“I hope you haven’t changed your mind,” Malfoy says, entering the room and removing his cloak. “You seemed eager enough outside and yet here you are, still fully dressed.”

“Is he coming?” he asks, ignoring Malfoy’s enquiry.

“It’s been arranged,” Malfoy concedes, blatantly eyeing him up and down. “You could look more grateful, Black. If it weren’t for me, Rosier’d have you earning your stripes by helping him bait Muggles in Berkshire along with the Lestranges.”

“I did everything you asked,” he says warily, not sure how to play this. He has a feeling that Malfoy expects something more from him, but he _really_ wants Sirius to himself tonight, even if it’s only for two hours.

“And you want me to go so you can enjoy your reward in peace?” Malfoy asks shrewdly. He says nothing in reply, and drops his gaze, not willing to start a fight over his. Not if it gets Malfoy out of here quicker. “You’re still in pain, aren’t you?”

“I already told you, I’m fine. There’s no need for-”

He stills as Malfoy undoes his robe, baring the left side of his body and working the sleeve down his arm. There is a brilliant red stain covering almost his entire upper-arm. It was an injury sustained at some point during his Induction on Friday, but he can’t remember when it hit him, what the curse was or who cast it. The skin _burns_ every time his robe brushes over it, and he can feel his eyes sting with tears as Malfoy draws his sleeve down.

“You’re right, this does look _fine_ ,” Malfoy says dryly, running a thumb over the reddened flesh. “So you probably won’t mind if I do this, will you?” Malfoy asks, pressing a kiss to the curve of his bicep.

“Stop that,” he hisses in pain, but Malfoy only tightens his grip on Regulus’ elbow when he tries to pull away. “He’s going to be here any minute, and you’re to -”

“Don’t I get to stay and play? After all, I arranged the transaction. Come to think of it, you wouldn’t even _be_ here if it weren’t for me.”

“Malfoy -”

“It’s all right Black. You can have it your way. You can have the whore all to yourself…” Malfoy continues, pausing to lick an excruciating trail along Regulus’ arm, before kissing up his shoulder, along his collar and then up his throat and toward his lips.

“Then you should g-”

“… _after_ I’ve taken my commission.”

~~*~~

 _The sentence is all my own  
And the price is to watch it fail_

“I don’t suppose I could persuade you to come away with me?”

“You know the rules, Lucius,” Sirius says, feigning sternness. For all Lupin’s talk of being exhausted and run off his feet, Sirius looks simply _perfect_ , dressed tidily in dark blue robes that aren’t anything near as scandalously sheer as what he had on last time. _Pity_. “We agreed that I would stay where he could come and find me if he needs to.”

“No, I don’t mean just for tonight,” Malfoy says, glancing at him, hidden in the shadows behind a row of candles and out of Sirius’ sight. “I mean - ”

He almost doesn’t get his wand out in time, as Malfoy’s Imperturbable charm falls into place around the bed. _Wretch! What are you trying to keep from me_? He’s quick enough, though, and manages to spell an Interference through Malfoy’s ward, preventing the charm from sealing them out of his earshot. If he’s quiet enough, they won’t be able to hear him.

“You don’t want me to go back to him at all,” Sirius realises, as Malfoy leads him to the bed.

“I can’t fathom why you’d want to,” Malfoy sneers with quiet distaste.

Regulus smiles to himself as Malfoy’s sneer evaporates in a _most_ satisfactory manner when Sirius raises an eyebrow in reply and starts to undo his robe.

“I thought we settled this,” Sirius continues softly, letting Malfoy back him up to the bed. “You asked me to come away with you, I told you no, you said we would never speak of it again. Why bring it up now?”

He sits up slightly at that. He still doesn’t fully understand what the nature of Sirius’ relationship with Malfoy entails. Or for that matter, even what Sirius’ relationship with Lupin might entail.

And as much as he doesn’t want to actually _see_ what it is Malfoy and Sirius do together as Malfoy squanders fifteen whole minutes of his precious two hours, he needs to get a better sense of what’s going on.

When Malfoy says nothing, Sirius prods further, asking, “Has something changed that I’m not aware of?” Malfoy gives Sirius a half-smile and then pushes him down, kissing him urgently.

 _Only fifteen minutes_ , he thinks, glancing at the stripe of light along his wand that’s supposed to recede with every passing minute. _Why is it crawling_? It’s one of those abstract quirks of time that no one can ever explain properly, but he knows that Malfoy’s fifteen minutes will feel longer than his own hour and three-quarters.

 _Unfair_ , he thinks angrily, wondering whether or not to let Malfoy’s Imperturbable charm fall all the way to the floor if Malfoy’s not going to answer any of Sirius’ questions and all Regulus gets for his trouble is having to listen to the wet sound of their lips working against one another’s, off-set only by their soft moaning.

“It’s been so long,” Malfoy says at last, when they break for air. “I didn’t want you thinking I’d changed my mind.”

“I haven’t changed mine,” Sirius says firmly, as Malfoy runs his fingers across the flesh exposed by the open robe.

His left arm starts to throb, and he has just enough time to relinquish his Interference against Malfoy’s Imperturbable before he screams in agony, dropping his wand, balling his right hand into a fist and smashing it against the wall behind him.

 _Why now_ , he wonders, gasping as the pain sears through his left arm, almost as though it is originating in the bone and radiating outwards. Before he can draw breath to scream again, the pain is gone, vanishing as quickly and as suddenly as it began. His hairline is soaked with sweat, and he can feel trickles of it running down his back – a sensation he’s always hated.

It takes him a little while to blink the haziness out of his eyes, and when he does, he can see Sirius spread across the bed, on his back with his robe open all the way down the front, and with Malfoy kneeling over him, holding the sash between his hands, saying something he’s unable to hear.

Reaching for his wand, he drills a hole at the base of the Imperturbable charm, just in time to hear Malfoy say, “…that you’re tired, but I didn’t just hand over four hundred galleons to watch you sleep. This way,” Malfoy continues, using the sash to bind Sirius’ wrists to one another and then to one of the posts at the head of the bed, “I can be certain that you’re not moving because you’ve been restrained, and not because you’re too lazy to earn your keep.”

He starts to stand as he hears that, still using the wall behind him for support, but he’s relieved when he hears Sirius laugh.

“I thought we made it perfectly clear that I was too tired to -”

“Oh, we, we, _we_ ,” Malfoy mocks petulantly, while securing each of Sirius’ ankles to the posts at the base of the bed. Malfoy crouches over Sirius on all fours, bringing their faces within inches of one another. “I try to be patient, but you do test my forbearance when you prattle on about that filthy -”

“Don’t call him -”

“Forgive me,” Malfoy says insincerely, his fingers stroking Sirius’ face in an oddly tender fashion. “It’s nothing personal, truly. Simply that he has something that was once mine by rights. I’ve never been able to understand what you see in him.”

“He loves me,” Sirius replies softly.

“He’s not the only one,” Malfoy challenges, equally softly. “Anyway, that only tells me what he sees in you, so you’ve yet to answer my question, pretty.” Malfoy settles himself atop Sirius, leisurely awaiting the younger man’s reply.

When Sirius finally speaks, it is to ask, “How is my dear cousin Cissy these days?” Malfoy actually looks startled at the query, and it’s one of the only times he’s seen that expression on Malfoy’s face. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen her. When was the last time? Let me think… Why, some days it seems like only yesterday I was sitting across the parlour from her as mother and Aunt Persephone agreed to cancel our betrothal.”

He only has vague memories of when that occurred, sometime during the Christmas holidays in his second year. Shortly after Sirius’ betrothal to Narcissa was cancelled, Malfoy became almost a permanent fixture of Grimmauld Place, paying court on a daily basis until _his_ betrothal to Narcissa was announced.

“No, that can’t be right,” Sirius continues, not pausing for Malfoy to interject. “I remember now, it was at her wedding. Such a lovely ceremony, didn’t you think? I was particularly touched by how solicitous her husband was, how romantic the vows were. I almost wished I were her. A little bit. Isn’t that silly?”

His jaw drops. _Sirius…and **Malfoy**_? In Malfoy’s fantasies, perhaps. _Was it Narcissa or Sirius that Malfoy was coming by to court_? Now that he thinks back carefully, he’s fairly sure that was one of the holidays that Sirius left early to go and stay with one of his stupid school friends.

“I _had_ to marry her,” Malfoy says, in a fierce whisper. “You can’t think they would have let me near you after we were out of school. I married her to be closer to you. There was no chance they’d have let me near their precious prince otherwise, not when there was an opportunity to put a mere Malfoy in his place for reaching above his station.”

“I notice they let you near Narcissa readily enough. Anyway, Remus wouldn’t have cared about any of those things. He _doesn’t_ care about any of those things. He’d come for me no matter what anybody else thought.”

“Yes, but only because he hasn’t been brought up properly and doesn’t know how to conduct himself in polite society,” Malfoy sneers.

“He _loves_ me,” Sirius insists, undaunted.

“He _looooooooooooves_ me,” Malfoy mocks, while rolling his hips forward against Sirius’ body. “You’re wasted on him. If you were mine … You wouldn’t have to go out everyday to work, for one thing. You wouldn’t ever be this tired, for another,” Malfoy says, pausing to kiss Sirius’ throat. “I wouldn’t have it. You’d have an entire wing of the estate to yourself, and I’d see to it you were never disturbed.”

“Lucius…”

“And yet you keep refusing me. Aren’t I good to you? Don’t I bring you nice gifts? Honestly, from the sound of things, anyone would think I had nothing to offer.”

“You’ve plenty to offer,” Sirius says with a shuddering sigh as Malfoy slips a hand between their bodies. “Just nothing that I want.”

“Exactly like your little brother, so dismissive of everything without waiting to hear what’s being offered. No wonder the House of Black is in decline,” Malfoy says with a smirk.

“Lucius…” Sirius attempts again, only to be cut off with a kiss.

“What if I had something you wanted? Or better yet, something to offer Lupin, as a fair trade for you?”

“What are you talking about?” Sirius asks warily, watching with jewel-bright eyes as Malfoy leers down at him. “There’s nothing he’d accept from you in exchange for me.”

“So confident, aren’t you? Oh, but that’s right. He _looooooooves_ you.” He sees uncertainty flicker over Sirius’ face before it is reigned in. “What if I offer it to _you_ , instead? And let you to decide whether you want to keep it for yourself, or give it to dear _Remus_ in exchange for leaving him?”

Malfoy doesn’t even need to glance in his direction for him to realise what Malfoy’s referring to. _Who_ Malfoy’s referring to.

Sirius understands at the same time, demanding, “What have you done with my brother?”

“Nothing he’s not agreed to. Or failed to thoroughly enjoy.”

“You _fucking_ -” Sirius snarls furiously. “You promised me you’d leave him alone!”

“I did, I swear I did, but he came to _me_ ,” Malfoy says, settling himself into Sirius.

 _You fucking…_ he thinks, echoing Sirius. _You planned this right from the beginning. It was never about me, it was always about getting to Sirius._ Everything always was.

“Regulus would _never_ -”

“Oh, but he did. Came to me within four days of the first time, and told me what he wanted. Regardless of the consequences,” Malfoy taunts, as Sirius struggles to throw him off. “You know, pretty, you’re not supposed to writhe like that until I’m snugly inside you.” Sirius goes still once more, his exhaustion starting to show. “Those binds are _very_ secure, and no amount of struggling will get you free beforetime. I’m very good at it.”

“Anybody would be if the only way they could get someone to stay still long enough for fucking was by tying them down,” Sirius snaps.

Regulus flinches in the shadows in anticipation of the slap that doesn’t eventuate, watching as Malfoy continues to smile and bends forward to stroke Sirius’ throat with one hand.

“That’s rather unfair. You can hardly deny you enjoy our time together as much as I do when you keep coming back, can you?” Sirius opens his mouth to reply, but Malfoy silences him by pressing Sirius’ lips together firmly with his fingers. “Just like your baby brother. _Slut_ ,” Malfoy hisses at him, removing his hand from Sirius’ lips to play with his hair.

“You leave my brother out of this.”

“He doesn’t _want_ to be left out of it. I’d wager he still doesn’t realise that you’re actually _you_ ,” Malfoy stage whispers. “He thinks I’m the only one who can provide him with access to his favourite -”

Rage flares through him, obliterating any shame or embarrassment he felt at being used in this way by a _Malfoy_.

“Lucius, _please_ ,” Sirius pleads. “Let him go. He’s only a baby, he hasn’t -”

“But what do I get in return, sweet? I have something you want, and your precious Lupin has something _I_ want. Why, if he _loves_ you as much as you say, he might be willing to make the trade, don’t you think so? If he thought it would make you happy.”

“What have you done to Regulus?”

A chill goes through him at hearing Sirius say his name in that anxious tone. Sirius isn’t frightened by much, and almost never lets his fear show, except when he’s frightened _for_ someone else.

“I already told you: nothing he hasn’t agr-”

“Let him _go_.”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple. For one thing, have you thought that perhaps he doesn’t _want_ to be let go of?” Malfoy asks with feigned concern, reaching for his wand.

He steadies himself against the wall, still hidden in the shadows, and he’s ready for when Malfoy casts _finite_ on the Imperturbable charm and sneers in his direction.

“Perhaps you should ask him yourself,” Malfoy suggests, as the row of candles between them sparks to life, lighting the shadows and allowing Sirius to see Regulus for the first time.

“Sirius?” He smiles as vapidly as he can, stumbling forward out of the shadows and affecting a stagger as he calls his brother’s name softly.

“No,” Sirius says equally softly, sounding unspeakably sad. “You promised me you’d leave him out of this.”

“Your fifteen minutes are up,” he says, addressing Malfoy and pretending that he hasn’t heard Sirius speak. He’s had more than enough practice at throwing tantrums, and is fairly confident he can come across as convincingly childish.

“Come here then, Black,” Malfoy tells him, smiling in amusement and tucking his wand away amongst the robes he’s draped over the chaise lounge.

 _You wait, you bastard._

He moves toward them, not having to feign a stagger when the pain momentarily returns to his arm. “Sirius?” he calls again softly, smiling when he sees that Sirius is looking at him. “Have you seen my Sirius since the last time?” he whispers loudly, crawling up onto the bed and collapsing next to Sirius, resting his head on his brother’s chest.

“You shouldn’t _be_ here, Regulus,” Sirius whispers fiercely.

“You won’t say, will you? Not while _Malfoy’s_ listening,” he says with a laugh, kneeling up on the bed and turning to face to Malfoy. “I let you have your fifteen minutes.”

“Regulus, listen to m- ” Sirius starts to say quietly, just loud enough for him to hear.

“The rest’s mine,” he continues over the top of Sirius’ warning, as Malfoy’s eyes narrow. “You _said_.”

“Regulus, please stop what you’re doing and -” Sirius tries again.

“Are you _deaf_?” he asks, frowning back at Malfoy who is reaching back to the robes he’s piled up over the chaise lounge. “Get dressed and then get out!”

“Regulus, he’s going for his wand, he’s arm- ”

“ _Imperio!_ ”


	3. 3

_As I turn to go  
You look at me for half a second_

“Further. _Further_! Come on, you can do it easily, you’re more flexible than- No? Well sit up straight, then. Better yet, stand,” he orders impatiently.

It’s immature, but ordering Malfoy to attempt to fellate himself – and watching the ensuing attempt – goes some way towards ensuring that the _Imperius_ has taken.

“Take your wand and guard the door. From the _outside_ ,” he adds, when it looks as though Malfoy means to simply stand by the door. “And get to it at once, if you please,” he goes on, hating how _precise_ all of the instructions have to be for the curse to be effective. “You can talk to the whore later.”

Malfoy gives him a glassy-eyed nod, rushing to obey his command without even taking the time to properly re-clothe himself, racing out with his robe only lightly draped across his shoulders.

“There,” he says playfully, settling his weight down against Sirius’ body as the door solidifies shut behind Malfoy. “I have you _all_ to myself now. So. When did you last hear from -”

“You can stop pretending you’ve been drugged,” Sirius says, squirming flat against the bed, presumably in an attempt to get away from him. “You never could have cast an _Imperius_ if you were.”

“All right,” he says, more angrily than he would like. “But _you_ can stop pretending you’re not really my brother.” Sirius opens his mouth, but Regulus continues straight on before his brother can lie again. “You never could have made my wand work for you, or opened the front gate to the Estate House if you weren’t.”

“I never said I wasn’t -”

“And _I_ never said I was drugged,” he says impatiently, prodding Sirius in the side with one knee and making him yelp. “I think I preferred you when you were pretending to be a whore. I’d forgotten how annoying you could be.” He kneels up and starts to shrug his robe off and then thinks better of it – he doesn’t want Sirius asking irritating questions about his arm, especially since he himself isn’t certain where and how he sustained the injury. “I didn’t come here to argue you with you.”

“No? Then what did you come here for?”

“To -” He can’t finish the sentence, feeling himself blush as his words cut off. _To have you do what I begged you to do last time, what you **refused** to do last time…_ “Just…for _you_.”

“For me? Am I really what you want?”

“ _Yes_ ,” he says fiercely, tightening his knees around Sirius’ hips. If Sirius believes nothing else he says tonight, he must at least believe this. _I love you. And I don’t care what that makes me._

“Is this really how you want me?” Sirius asks, much more softly.

 _This is the only way I can **have** you_ , he thinks guiltily, taking in Sirius’ exhaustion, and the sash binding his wrists to the bed. _You never answer my letters, I had to ask for **Malfoy’s** help in finding you again, and once we’re done tonight, I’ll probably never see you again…_

“I just…” he says helplessly, not knowing how to put any of that into words. “I just want to be able to see you sometimes. I’m _sorry_ ,” he adds, flicking his wand at the bindings and watching them unknot themselves.

“You should be,” Sirius says as he sits up, pulling his robe closed with one hand and reaching the other one out for his sash.

“Are you leaving already?” he asks, as Sirius pushes him to one side.

“What are you doing here, Regulus? What are you doing here with Malfoy?”

 _What are **you** doing here with Malfoy_ , he wants to ask. _What did you do with him before, when you still lived at home?_

“I told you,” he says softly, unable to reconcile the fact that he _heard_ how worried Sirius was about him before with his brother’s evident hostility now. “I just… I wanted to see you. To talk with you, and ask you things. I miss you.” Self-consciously, he reaches for the sash of his own robe, ensuring it’s fastened properly. “You’re not really leaving already, are you? I only wanted to -”

“So you had to _buy_ me again? Is that why Malfoy pushed so hard to get me tonight?”

“Is… ”

“This is one of the worst possible nights you could have chosen to -”

“I said I was sorry,” he reiterates softly. “I never see you anymore. I just…” he trails off, once again unsure of what to say.

“You couldn’t have said that in a letter?” _What_? “No need to look so startled,” Sirius continues, with one of those mocking half-smiles he’s always hated. “There again, given I never received a reply to any of the letters I sent you, perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised it’s never occurred to you to put anything in writing.”

“I never received any of your letters,” he says, frowning in confusion.

That startles his brother into stillness, Sirius staring at him, wide-eyed. “Are you saying -”

“And I never received replies to any of the letters that I sent _you_ ,” he adds, already trying to think of who might have interfered with his mail.

 _Was it Mother? Did she not want me to have anything to do with him?_

“Oh,” Sirius says, sounding stunned. “Oh, Regulus. Come here.” Sirius gives him a sad smile, reaching for him and pulling Regulus roughly into his arms, his hand coming down directly on the ruin that is Regulus’ upper arm.

“ _Don’t_ -” he manages to gasp out, trying not to scream. He wriggles his arm out of Sirius’ grip but stays close so that Sirius doesn’t snatch for him again.

“It’s all right,” Sirius says, sounding amused. “Here now, there’s no need to cry,” Sirius continues, scrunching up a corner of his robe and wiping Regulus’ face with it. “We can always find the letters, they can’t have been destroyed. Better still, we can actually _talk_ instead of entrusting our thoughts to untrustworthy bits of parchment, hmm?”

He manages a watery smile, and Sirius rewards him with a kiss on the forehead.

“What -” he hisses slightly as Sirius rebalances them on the bed, his eyes stinging with fresh tears at the friction of his robe against his arm. “What were you writing to me about?”

“Plenty of time for that later,” Sirius says softly. “Let’s hear what’s troubling you first. Come on,” Sirius cajoles. “What’s upset you? Tell me and I’ll sort it out, whatever it is. _Whoever_ it is.”

“I just wanted to -” he gasps, feeling another twinge go through his arm. “I just wanted to ask you things. Advice. About what I should do. Everything I told you about last time.”

He starts to go over it all again, but his brother interrupts him almost at once.

“Is that all?” Sirius says, smiling. “That’s easily fixed.”

“Is it?” he asks uncertainly, relieved but also dismayed when he realises that Sirius really _must_ be as much cleverer than him as everybody else is always saying, if his brother has thought of a solution so quickly.

“All you have to do,” Sirius says, snuggling closer and whispering the words to him in case there is someone to overhear, “is agree to come away with me. Not immediately, of course. They would come to me straight away to try and find you, but at the end of the week, say. I’d meet you in the park opposite the Estate House, and from there, I’d bring you back to my place.”

“Run away?” he asks numbly. He’s considered it, of course, but only in the abstract, only in the ‘I want to get out of here right _now_ ’ sense, only with respect to what he would be running from and never with any thought given to where he might run _to_. “I don’t -”

“Only if you want,” Sirius says, sitting up slightly and sounding more serious.

“I’m all Mother has left,” he says. “I’m _married_. I can’t run away just like that.”

“You _can_.”

“Mother depends on me to -”

“She _uses_ you, just like she wanted to use me.”

“Don’t say that! I have duties to acquit, that’s all there is to it. She would never -”

“She made you leave school before you finished your NEWTs, she made you say your betrothal vows to a stranger and she stood over you at your wedding to make sure you said the words right. She’s going to make you have a _baby_ , when you’re still just a baby yourself, and she’s going to let _them_ come after you and make you a Death Eater. What more does she have to _make_ you do before you’ll -”

He makes a motion with one hand, surprised when Sirius relents. He doesn’t want to hear any more reasons for why he should go – he’s thought about it enough himself, even if it was only ever in the abstract. But what matters _more_ , is…

“Where would I go?”

 _You had Potter to run to. Who have I got? **My** best friend is one of the ones who sent Malfoy after me_ , he thinks bitterly, recalling how familiar Malfoy was with Barty at the reception at the Rosiers’.

“Where? With me, of course!” Sirius says, sounding amazed that it hasn’t occurred to Regulus.

Which, of course, it hasn’t – the offer surprises him completely.

“You’d let me stay with you?”

“Of course I would,” Sirius says tenderly, wrapping his arms around Regulus and pulling him close again. “The offer is always there. _Always_. It’s up to you. If you want to,” Sirius adds, sounding uncertain, and tightening his grip around Regulus’ arm, causing him to gasp with pain. “ _Do_ you want to?”

“Please -” he sobs out, struggling to push Sirius away once more and unable to hold back tears.

“Don’t cry, Regulus,” Sirius says softly, worriedly, removing his arm and kneeling up over Regulus. “You don’t have to leave her – _them_ – if you don’t want to. I know it’s hard thinking about leaving what you know – even if it is horrid – and moving on to something new, but promise me you _will_ think about it? You’d be safe, and you wouldn’t have to join any foul club to stay safe, you wouldn’t be forced to do anything you didn’t want to – not anything at all.”

“Really?” he whispers, forcing himself to sit up with his left side furthest away from his brother.

“Yes,” Sirius affirms fervently. “I should have taken you with me when I left the first time, even though you laughed at me and said I was a fool.” He blushes fiercely at the memory. It’s a memory he relives nearly every night, Sirius all packed and ready to go, his expression crumpling as he realises that Regulus isn’t coming with him. “Should have known you couldn’t be trusted to know what was good for you,” Sirius adds fondly.

“I couldn’t,” he says, managing a smile to accompany the sentiment. “I still can’t.”

“Come with me, then,” Sirius urges warmly. “You’ll no longer be the heir, but -”

“I don’t _want_ to be the heir anymore,” he realises.

Sirius looks startled, but it’s the truth. He _doesn’t_ want the responsibilities that come with the mantle. Despite his dirty innuendo, Malfoy was right – the pressure of being the last of his name is overwhelming. He recalls the vows he swore at his wedding, spoken to affirm that he would protect his wife, and he remembers wondering at the time who was going to swear to protect _him_.

When Sirius still lived at home, Regulus spent all of his time trying to be like his older brother, and then when Sirius left, Regulus was forced to _become_ his older brother, and perhaps it was all of that upheaval that made him realise that all he’s ever wanted _is_ his older brother – in any way he can have him.

“It’s awful, isn’t it?” Sirius asks, oblivious to Regulus’ thoughts. “Waking every morning feeling sick because you have to compromise on something, having to balance everybody’s competing demands and negotiate a safe path for your family but the whole time, nobody ever, _ever_ asks you what _you_ want.”

“Yes,” he says, realising that he was right all along, that Sirius was the only person to whom he could confide any of this, because Sirius is the only one who has been in the same position, and is the only one who can _properly_ understand.

“I know all too well. It doesn’t have to be like that. You can turn your back on all of it. You _can_. Come with me. You won’t be the Head of the House of Black anymore, but you can be my baby brother again. And I can swear to you right now that I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“I want to…” he starts to say, trailing off, as he’s not sure what to say next.

“But?” Sirius frowns worriedly, reaching for his hands and intertwining their fingers. “What’s the matter? What are you afraid of?”

“I’m not…”

He stops, not sure how to tell Sirius that it isn’t his decision. It’s up to Sirius, and whether or not Sirius feels comfortable knowing that his little brother loves him fervently, desperately and thoroughly inappropriately.

“Tell me,” Sirius says again, brushing Regulus’ hair out of his eyes and hooking it behind his ear. “Whatever it is, I’ll -”

“It’s this,” he murmurs, gathering all of his courage before leaning forward and kissing his brother full on the mouth.

~~*~~

 _With an open invitation for me to go into temptation,  
Knowing full well the Earth will rebel_

“You don’t have to do this,” Sirius tells him, working the catches of Regulus’ robe free. He’s flat on his back on the enormous bed once again, with Sirius kneeling over his head. “You can come and stay with me anytime you want, you don’t have to give me anything. You certainly don’t have to give me _this_.”

“I _want_ to give you this,” he replies, nuzzling up against his brother’s leg and sighing happily as he feels his robe fall loose, the halves sliding down his sides. “I couldn’t have stayed with you without you knowing. I don’t want to keep anything from you. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Sirius whispers, once again with that fond smile, leaning forward to kiss his face. “You shouldn’t ever feel you have to apologise for loving someone.”

“I missed you,” he confides shyly, giggling as Sirius works a hand into his robe and pinches his side.

“Oh, I’m sure you did,” Sirius agrees warmly. “The number of times you must have thought, ‘I wish Sirius were here, being shouted at instead of me’. Ssh,” Sirius laughs, when he frowns and tries to sit up, “I’m only teasing. Lie back down.” Sirius flattens his palm against Regulus’ chest and pushes him back firmly.

He relaxes back against the bed for a moment as Sirius’ fingers roam over his body.

“If only you could see yourself,” Sirius breathes, as Regulus closes his eyes. “Your wife must be _blind_ not to want you.” He can hear Sirius humming softly to himself as he works each side of Regulus’ robe under Regulus’ hips. “I’m going to deal with these now,” Sirius whispers, stroking his hipbones through his pants. “All right? If you want me to leave them as they are, tell me.”

“I – You could – If you think I -” he starts to say, screwing his eyes shut tight, and not sure what his response should be as Sirius works a finger between his hip and the top of his pants, snapping the elastic. “Hey!” he squeals, glancing about in shock.

“Look at you, all flushed like that,” Sirius whispers with an amused look. “I’d lick the blush off you but there’s so _much_ of it, all over you everywhere. At least, I _think_ it goes everywhere,” Sirius amends, hooking his thumbs in the hip-band of his pants, working them slowly down his thighs and grinning down at him.

“ _Sirius_ ,” he whines, as Sirius laughs and blows cool air over him. “Please, would you -”

“What is it you want, Regulus?” Sirius asks warmly, looking up from between Regulus’ legs and sitting up in bed. “Want me to take you into my mouth?” Sirius waits until he nods before laughing again, scrambling over him and raining kisses onto his face. “Greedy thing, wanting it all at once. Right now, though,” Sirius says, working a leg between Regulus’ thighs to rub directly against his crotch, “I think you need to take the edge off, quick as you can.”

“But will you fu -” he starts, before Sirius flashes him a quick smile and _drags_ his knee up between Regulus’ legs, grinding against his cock.

“We’ve an hour and a half,” Sirius soothes. “At least. Plenty of time for that in a bit, promise. For now, let’s take care of this, hmm?”

“Why won’t – _oh_ ,” he manages, as Sirius establishes a rhythm, the whole bed rocking as they rub against one another.

“Plenty of time,” Sirius repeats. “And you, look at you, almost asleep as it is.”

It’s not until Sirius says the words, brushing Regulus’ hair out of his face as he does so, that he realises he _does_ feel sleepy.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t -”

“Ssh, there’s no need for sorry,” Sirius says, speeding up and pressing another kiss to his forehead. Another wave of exhaustion goes through him. “Let’s take care of this for now, and we can see to you properly once you’re rested, all right?”

“All ri…” he murmurs, struggling to keep his eyes open, choking back his words as Sirius reaches between them and wraps warm fingers around his cock.

“Let go,” Sirius whispers. “Don’t hold it in, let it go, and you’ll be able to sleep properly.”

“ _Please_ , I nee- _Siri-_ …mmmm,” he hums into Sirius’ throat, as all of that tightness in his body vanishes. “Nice…” he adds in a shy whisper, embarrassed at crying out like that.

“Want to sleep now?” Sirius asks gently, easing away from him.

He nods sleepily, adding, “But you’ll stay, won’t you?”

“Of course I’ll stay,” Sirius tells him, as if he’s foolish to think for a moment that Sirius wouldn’t want to. “I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

He slips off to sleep easily enough, but is roused – he is not sure when – by loud noises coming from the other side of the door.

 _Malfoy_ , he thinks muzzily, shifting up slightly. Sirius is curled around him from behind, sound asleep, breathing deeply, and oblivious to the shouting outside.

“Sirius,” he whispers, frowning when his brother doesn’t respond. He recalls what Lupin was saying earlier about Sirius not having slept properly recently, and feels a twinge of guilt that it was _his_ Induction prank that has tired his brother out like this.

 _If it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else_ , he reminds himself firmly.

There is a thud from outside and raised voices, sending his heart racing. Squashing his guilt to one side, he settles back into the bed and kicks Sirius sharply, feigning sleep as he does so.

“Rem -” Sirius murmurs sleepily before shifting about, probably sitting up. There is another thud from outside, and he hears Sirius draw in a breath in response. Then he can hear Sirius cursing under his breath, presumably as he does his robe up, but he smiles into the pillow when Sirius strokes a hand through his hair affectionately before rising from the bed.

He cracks one eye open, watching as Sirius stumbles tiredly out of the bed. His brother’s barely taken a step forward when Lucius Malfoy comes through the door once more. _That_ jolts Sirius out of his half-awake state, sending him scrambling for Regulus’ wand in a heartbeat.

“What is it, Lucius?” Malfoy turns to face Sirius, reaching for his own wand. “Or perhaps I should ask _who_ is it, instead.”

“It’s of no matter. You’re not to be disturbed.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Sirius asks with a sneer. The hammering outside seems to have stopped. “It’s Remus, isn’t it? Let him in.”

“You don’t know that it’s him,” Malfoy spits, sounding nettled.

“Who else would it be?”

“I don’t have to tell _you_ ,” Malfoy tells him, looking over to where Regulus is pretending to sleep. “Your younger brother was very specific about -”

“One more chance, Lucius,” Sirius says testily, gritting out every syllable.

“It might be Rosier. Or Lestrange, come for the baby.”

 _No, it can’t be, I was so **good** , I gave them what they wanted. They can’t want me again. They **can’t**._

“Either of them could get past the wards on that door,” Sirius sneers, with such contempt that he feels instantly relieved.

 _It can’t be either of them. It **can’t**._

“But Lupin can’t,” Malfoy finishes for him. “His sort can’t even _touch_ the wards on that door, and yet you want _him_ , when you could have -”

“Don’t start that again! Even if I _were_ to agree to go with you, what would you do with Cissy? Do you remember your wedding at _all_? Do you remember the vows you made to one another? You’ve been bound to her at _least_ since your son was born, if not before. You can’t take back your vows just like that. Even if you left her, she could track you down no matter where you ran.”

He thinks back to his own wedding vows, and how none of them are binding because his marriage has still not been consummated. For that matter… _**Her** vows will become binding after the first time we lie together, but **mine** only bind after she gives me an heir._ He doesn’t owe her anything until she gives birth – which means that he _can_ set her aside when he leaves home, and nobody can use her to track him if he doesn’t want to be found…

Returning his attention to Sirius and Malfoy, he is horrified to see that Malfoy is pointing his wand directly at him, particularly since he hasn’t heard what was just said. To his relief, Sirius steps between them, blocking Malfoy’s aim.

“You can’t honestly think he’s the only one who cares about you,” Malfoy sneers, infusing the sentence with as much scorn as possible. “What about everything I’ve ever done for you?”

 _Hex him_ , he thinks fiercely, wondering how Sirius can stand to listen to any more of this. _Hex his spine out through his lying mouth._

“You haven’t done anything for me. You’ve used me, and lied to me, and hurt me. I’m not going anywhere with you,” Sirius says firmly.

“What about him, then?” Malfoy asks, nodding in Regulus’ direction. “If I don’t get you, it’s only fair I get to take back my stake,” Malfoy says, moving towards the bed again.

“Get _back_ ,” Sirius snarls, sending a warning flare of white-hot sparks, just short of Malfoy’s nose. “You entered your stake, gambled and _lost_. He’s mine, now. You don’t get anything.”

“Are you quite certain?” Malfoy asks quietly, still under the effects of _Imperius_ and not quite able to make it sound like a threat. “Are you _quite_ certain there’s nothing I have that you might want? Nothing I might be able to do that nobody else could?”

“What did you do with his letters?” Sirius asks, instead.

Once again, the small pause followed by a seemingly unrelated question startles Malfoy into hesitating before answering, forcing him to try and see where this might lead.

“Whose letters?” Malfoy hedges carefully.

“Regulus’ letters, you bastard,” Sirius spits furiously. He sits up in bed at that, listening intently. “I _know_ one of your house elves is particularly talented at intercepting owls. I’ve experienced that first hand, after all. You took care of the letters that I wrote to him, too, didn’t you? Made certain he was unaware of _our_ arrangement, and gave him no other option but to approach _you_ if he ever wanted to see me again.”

“I don’t have to tell -” Malfoy starts to say, fully aware that the _Imperius_ only binds him to Regulus’ voice and not to Sirius’.

“You intercepted my letters?” he asks coldly, rising from the bed. The light isn’t bright enough to see properly, but it would be nice to think that the blood just drained out of Malfoy’s face as he turns towards Regulus. “What did you do with them?”

“I only read them,” Malfoy replies woodenly.

“No, you _didn’t_ ,” he spits, moving closer. “You did more than that. Who else did you show them to?”

“No one,” Malfoy insists. “I swear it,” he adds, at Regulus’ frown. “I even set them alight after I finished so that nobody else ever could.”

“You did _what_?” he says, before he can control himself.

As disgusted as he is that Malfoy has _read_ his letters – both the ones he wrote Sirius and the ones Sirius wrote to him – a part of him was hoping that Malfoy kept them, even if it was only so he had something to hold over the both of them later on.

 _Just so I could read them, and know whatever it was Sirius wanted to tell me._

“You destroyed my letters?” he asks, furiously taking a step forward. Malfoy takes a step away from him, looking openly worried now.

“Tampering with the owl post is against the law, Regulus,” Sirius tells him, far too calmly. “He couldn’t risk anybody finding the intercepted letters.”

“They were _my_ letters,” he says, trying to restrain his temper. “I wrote you half a dozen letters after the first time I saw you here, and when you didn’t reply, I -” His arm starts to throb again, as if to remind him of everything he’s paid just to be able to see his brother tonight, when all along… “You _planned_ this,” he accuses Malfoy, who jumps at being made the focus of attention again.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Sirius moving to stand behind him, still with his wand trained on Malfoy – but he still flinches when one of his brother’s arms winds itself around his waist. “Don’t let him see you like this,” Sirius murmurs. “Don’t let him know he’s hurt you. Send him away, and we’ll talk.”

“I _want_ him to know,” he whispers angrily. “That way when I’m finally in a position to pay him out for everything he’s done to me, he’ll _know_ that he deserves it.”

“You’re being a foolish little boy,” Sirius says, making him flinch once more – this time from embarrassment. “You’ve got him under _Imperius_. There’s no need to bluster and threaten. Smile, and send him on his way. We can sort him out later.”

“Go home,” he orders at once, trusting in his brother and putting as much force into the command as he can. “Go home,” he repeats, when Malfoy nods slowly, “and forget you were ever here tonight.”

Malfoy leaves, and immediately he has second thoughts.

He can’t hold his suspicion or fear in anymore, and he can feel his knees lock with the effort of not collapsing back against Sirius.

“Give me back my wand.”

Sirius hands it to him immediately. _That doesn’t prove anything_ , he tells himself firmly, as he turns and makes himself bring the point up to his brother’s throat with his left hand.

“Regulus?”

“I’ve had _enough_ of this,” he says, clutching at his arm with his free hand, and trying not to sob. _I shouldn’t have listened to you, I shouldn’t have let Malfoy go, what if it’s another trap?_ “How do I know – Prove that you’re really you!”

“How?” Sirius asks, somehow contriving not to sound scared even though he doesn’t take his eyes off Regulus. “Will you ask me something? Something that only you and I would know the answer to?”

 _What if all of this about the letters is just another ruse?_ Perhaps his _real_ brother received the letters all along and genuinely never bothered to respond. _But I don’t **want** to believe that_ … _I want you to really be him…_

“ _Revelato_ ,” he says instead, a flare of wand-light flying towards Sirius, but leaving him unchanged. “ _Finite! Finite incantatem!_ ”

“Regulus,” Sirius says, now sounding a little alarmed, “there’s no need for -”

“ _He never called me Regulus_!” he shrieks, feeling something inside him snap. “He _never_ did. He only ever called me by my baby-name!”

“I know all of that,” Sirius says, with a small smile. “I also know how much you hate it, so -”

“ _Liar_!” he screams, partly in anger and partly in pain. Sirius flinches at the violence in his voice. “You don’t know what it is!”

“It’s ‘Baby-cat’.”

“ _Everybody_ knows that,” he spits, recognising the trap and pressing his wand into Sirius’ throat and smiling viciously when Sirius tries to pull away. “You can’t trick _me_ with -”

“It was easier for mine,” Sirius goes on, valiantly ignoring his threats. “They named me for the alpha star of one of Orion’s hunting hounds, so it followed that my baby-name was ‘Puppy’. But for you… Mother said it should be ‘Kitten’, because that’s what a young cat is, and Father said it should be ‘Cub’, because that’s what a young lion is.”

He’s only heard this story once before, and that was from Mother. Sirius was there at the time – he thinks he remembers it correctly. Who else would know the story?

 _She wouldn’t have told anybody else, because it was a story about her fighting with father… Nobody else would know to tell anyone of the Membership…_

“And so?” he asks, his arm shaking with the effort of holding his wand up.

“And _so_ ,” Sirius says, smiling now, “they agreed on ‘Baby-cat’, because a cat was a cat, a lion was a larger cat, and you were their baby, which made you their Baby-cat.” He lowers his arm. “Perhaps I should just call you ‘Cat’, now you’re of age and not a baby anymore,” Sirius continues. “Even though you sometimes still act like one.”

 _I don’t…_ He still doesn’t know for certain if this is his brother or not, and he realises he never can be certain. _I should have gone with you when you asked the first time. Then I’d know you enough to know if this is **you** really._

“Shut up, Sirius,” he says, closing his eyes and raising a hand to his face to scrub away his exhaustion.

“I’m sorry,” Sirius says softly, embracing him suddenly and cuddling him close. “You did exactly the right thing, I won’t tease you for it. You had to be certain. _Are_ you certain, now?”

 _He made my wand work. Just now, when he used it against Malfoy. He **must** be a Black, and he can’t be Bella or Cissy in disguise because we’ve been here longer than an hour, and…_ But then there was all of that time that he was asleep, and… _And they’re **married** ,_ he realises triumphantly. _They aren’t Blacks anymore._

He doesn’t trust himself to speak, instead choosing to nod his assent while returning the embrace, wrapping his arms around his brother.

“I’m glad,” Sirius goes on. “I’m sorry things have been so difficult for you, and that you’re confused and miserable and don’t know who to trust.”

He heaves a shuddering sob, clawing his fingers into Sirius’ robe and breathing in the scent of the blue fabric.

“It really is me,” Sirius says, rocking him soothingly. “Do you still want to come away with me? You can say no, but I’d rather you didn’t.”

 _Please. I want you to be really you._

The hammering outside starts up again, making them both jump.

“Now?” he asks urgently, his fingers clinging so tightly that they’re starting to spasm. “Can we go now?”

“That’s probably Remus, outside,” Sirius tells him gently. “I know you didn’t get the time with me that you wanted tonight, but I promise I’ll make it up to you when I come for you next time.”

“You’re…” he starts, not quite believing what he’s hearing. “You’re not _leaving_ me here?” The renewed hammering is accompanied by muffled shouting once again. He can’t quite make out what is being said, but Sirius looks pained. “Please…” he adds, when it looks as though Sirius is trying to decide whether to take him or not. “You said I could come with you any time.”

“Regulus, tonight isn’t -”

“You _said_ ,” he repeats, in high alarm. “What if something happens? What if you forget? What if I forget? What if we _both_ forget?” He’s very close to stamping his foot in frustration – he’s only just now managed to convince himself that this is Sirius, but if they part, he’ll have to go through this all over again. _Why can’t you see that?_ “What if someone comes for me who isn’t really you? Or when you come, what if I’m not really _me_? Or…or… _Why_ can’t I come with you now?”

“We can make up a password between us. That way we can be certain, and… Don’t you want to go home and pack first?”

“No!” he shouts, surprised and hurt that Sirius is resorting to such specious excuses to get rid of him. “Stop trying to put me off! If you don’t want me tagging along, just _say_ so, and I’ll leave you alone. You didn’t have to pretend you were going to help me, or that you understood how I felt about you, or -”

“Stop that at once,” Sirius commands, in a surprisingly gentle tone. “Listen to me. You can definitely come with me, but. I’d like you to go home, pack and wait for me. I’ll come for you on Friday morning, first thing. Will you do that for me?”

 _Friday? That’s four days away_! There is no way he’ll be able to put off Rosier or Lestrange for that long – they are already impatient that his suggested method for taunting Muggles isn’t anywhere near as disruptive as they would like. And if any of them find about this meeting…

He doesn’t say any of this but Sirius must read it in his face, because he sighs in defeat.

“All right,” Sirius says, flinching again at the banging outside. “I want you to stay in here. I _promise_ I will come back for you. Once I leave the room, I want you to change the ward on the door so that only you or I can get through it. Do you know how to do that?” He nods impatiently. “In return, I want you to promise that you won’t leave the room until I come for you.”

“Will it -”

“It will _definitely_ be tonight,” Sirius assures him, reaching for Regulus’ hands, untangling them from his robes and kissing them. “I swear it. Can I have your promise in return?”

“I won’t leave the room until you say,” he agrees, leaning forward to kiss Sirius’ mouth.

“And you’ll put up the ward I asked you to,” Sirius prompts, dodging away from him.

“Yes,” he concedes impatiently, already planning how to alter a ward keyed to pure-bloods into one keyed just to Blacks. “I’ll do it, I promise,” he adds, straining forward again.

Sirius smiles, allowing the contact and deepening the kiss almost at once.

“Not until I come for you,” Sirius reminds him, pulling away as Regulus chases after his mouth.

“Promise,” he whispers, trying not to cling as Sirius walks away from him.

He summons a few of the enormous pillows on the bed onto the floor by the door, as Sirius leaves, settling down onto them and charming the door transparent once more.

 _You’re not leaving without me_ , he tells Sirius mentally. _No sneaking away now that I’ve given you my word._

~~*~~

 _Into temptation, safe in the wide open arms of hell_

“You’re late,” Lupin says, his voice so close to a whisper that Regulus is forced to cast a hearing-enhancement charm. Even then, he is really relying on the movements of their lips – the enhanced hearing only hinting at what they might be saying to one another. He can’t tell whether Lupin’s obvious upset is due to anger or worry. “What happened tonight? You’ve never not made your own way home before…”

“I fell asleep,” Sirius murmurs apologetically, making his way towards the straight edge of the semi-circular room where Lupin is sitting.

Lupin looks even scruffier than Regulus remembers – probably due to the same reason there are scorch marks marring the walls of the otherwise elegant room. Malfoy isn’t an exceptionally _good_ duellist, but what he lacks in skill, he makes up for in viciousness.

“ _Lucius_ wore you out?” Lupin asks in disbelief, reaching a hand out to Sirius without rising from the cushioned bench running along the length of the straight wall. “What… Were you too tired to perform the spell properly?”

“No, it wasn’t that,” Sirius replies.

“Then what -”

“I’ll tell you after,” Sirius says evasively, stepping between Lupin’s legs and pressing close.

It’s not that Sirius won’t answer the question, but if he feels that the other person is unwittingly asking an awkward question out of politeness or concern, he’ll wait until they ask a second time – just to make sure they really want to know the answer, and that the associated awkwardness isn’t endured unless absolutely necessary.

“This is the fifth time he’s asked for you this month,” Lupin says, frowning with what is clearly worry this time as Sirius climbs into his lap. “Did he ask you to…”

“I’m not leaving you for him, I promise,” Sirius says, so softly he is barely able to make out the words. He amplifies the hearing enhancement charm, just managing to catch Sirius say, “I won’t leave you unless you order me to. Perhaps not even then.”

They kiss then, _of course_ , and he tries not to feel resentful. It’s not their fault he can see. But at the same time… _You can kiss him anytime you want_ , he thinks angrily, watching as Lupin works a hand up to Sirius’ face and tips his head back. _Every time I try, he moves away from me._

“Sirius…” Lupin starts to say, once they _finally_ break apart.

“I’ll tell you about it afterwards,” Sirius promises, rocking back and forth on Lupin’s lap. “Don’t you need me, now?”

“Oh, yes,” Lupin breathes, working Sirius’ robe free with little pinches and tugs, pausing to brush his lips over the bared flesh as he does so. After a moment or so of this, Lupin seems to tire of his efforts and reaches behind Sirius’ neck for the collar of his robe, yanking it down and away from his body.

“Has it started?” Sirius asks, sounding alarmed, but managing to do so in an even quieter voice.

He has the distinct feeling Sirius suspects that he might be listening. _But he can’t possibly **know**_ , he tells himself, increasing the amplification of the charm once again. Any more amplification, and he’ll be able to hear the sweat sliding down their bodies.

“Just now,” Lupin replies, in a breathless rush. “Need you _now_ ,” he adds, pushing Sirius and spilling him flat along the bench.

“ _Slow_ , please,” Sirius pants, rolling over onto his belly as Lupin urges him over.

“Can’t,” Lupin says, almost apologetically. “Should have been on time if you wanted slow.”

“I fell _asleep_ ,” Sirius reminds him.

“Up. _Up_ ,” Lupin commands, clutching Sirius’ hips and making him wince. “Come on, Black,” he says with a frustrated growl. “Hands and knees. Face to the floor, hips nice and high.”

He punctuates his words with a smack to Sirius’ thigh that passes through the hearing enhancement charm like a thunderclap, rendering him practically deaf for a moment or so. He instantly lets the charm go, unable to hear what they’re doing, but able to see Lupin finally managing to lift Sirius’ hips up by main force, and keeping them there with a wave of his wand, using something that looks like a modified Body-bind jinx.

Sirius is saying something, and he can’t for the life of him work out what it is. Lupin listens to Sirius with a smile, stroking his hair out of his eyes before kneeling on the floor to kiss him, _again_. And _then_ , Lupin pulls away, stuffing some of his fingers in Sirius’ mouth, working them in and out.

Sirius gasps when Lupin removes his fingers from his mouth and slides them up between Sirius’ legs, pressing them in, and that alarms him, because Sirius’ laboured whines are loud enough for him to hear. He knows enough to know that sounds like that can be caused by both agony and rapture, but he doesn’t know enough to know which of the two is causing his brother to cry out like that.

 _Is he hurting you? I’ll hex him, if he is._

Fortunately, Lupin chooses that very moment to move into position behind Sirius and roll his hips forward, causing Sirius to shriek in pain, and removing all doubt from Regulus’ mind.

 _No, you don’t…_

The door causes his skin to tingle as he passes through it, but neither of them look up.

“ _Finite_ ,” he says, pointing his wand at his brother.

Sirius falls forward almost at once, unable to hold his own weight up, let alone Lupin’s as well. Lupin falls forward with him, already rolling to put himself between Sirius and the source of the spell, and reaching his for his wand at the same time.

“Regulus, _no_ ,” Sirius pants, grabbing at Lupin’s arm and then twisting himself around to put himself between Lupin and Regulus. “Remus, please, leave this to me.”

“Let go of me,” Lupin snarls, shaking Sirius off and starting to stand. Sirius pulls himself up as well, clutching onto Lupin for balance. “You’re just like the rest of your family, aren’t you? Pity you never had a younger sister to marry, but I suppose you’ll be happier with _him_ , than -”

“It’s not what you think,” Sirius says desperately, now using all of his strength to keep Lupin from raising his wand arm.

“Sirius, are you all righ-” he starts to say, but is cut off by Lupin giving Sirius a violent push, accompanied with a guttural ‘get _away_ from me’. He has his wand trained on Lupin even before Sirius hits the floor, and a shouted ‘ _Expelliarmus_ ’ sends Lupin’s wand flying. “Now. _You_ get away from _him_ ,” he commands, starting forward determinedly.

“Don’t go,” Sirius begs, prone on the floor in front of Lupin and wrapping a hand around one of his ankles. “Please, can we-”

“He’s your _brother_ , it’s disgusting!” Lupin replies, kicking Sirius’ hand away. “It was all a lie, wasn’t it? Right from the beginning, when Malfoy first approached me. He’s been doing it for _him_ all along, hasn’t he?”

“Remus -”

“I think I’ve wasted enough of my time on you,” Lupin spits, before Disapparating.

Sirius stares at the empty space where Lupin was standing as if he can’t believe that the Mudblood has walked away from him.

“Sirius?”

With one flick of his wand, he retrieves Sirius’ robe and goes over to drape it across his brother’s shoulders.

“Sirius,” he tries again, looking directly into Sirius’ face, and alarmed by the way his brother is staring as though looking _through_ him without seeing. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen, I know you wanted me stay where I was, but it sounded like he was hurting you.”

Sirius smiles slightly, although his gaze still isn’t focussed on Regulus. “It’s all right,” Sirius tells him, working himself into the robe slowly. “It’s not your fault,” he continues wearily, winding his arms around Regulus. “Even if it was, I couldn’t blame you. I would have done the same thing.”

That isn’t quite what he wants to hear.

“Is that why you wanted me to stay in the room?” he asks, pressing further into Sirius and realising that he is shaking and needs Sirius to make it better. “Because you thought I would misunderstand?” _I **didn’t** misunderstand. I heard you **scream**_.

“Regulus -” Sirius starts to say patiently, hauling him closer.

“I didn’t misunderstand, did I? He _was_ hurting you,” he says, feeling slightly guilty as Sirius closes his eyes. “Or was I wrong?”

“No,” Sirius whispers, and he realises now that Sirius is shaking, too. “You weren’t wrong.”


	4. 4

_We can go sailing in, climb down  
Lose yourself, when you linger long_

It is just like the Friday night of his Induction, with the black cloaks and the darkness and stealth and secrecy and, of course, the _masks_.

Those terrifying white masks that fit so perfectly against the skin, that mould themselves so closely to the face, and that follow so fluidly the expressions of those wearing them — you could almost be forgiven for thinking that the Members have simply painted their faces white.

One of them approaches, stepping right into his space with a smile, and even with the mask he knows that it’s Barty. They’ve been best friends since before school, he’d know the shape of that face anywhere even if it _is_ covered in white. And then Barty twines his gloved fingers in the folds of Regulus’ robe, yanks him forward and kisses him on the mouth.

They’ve never done _that_ before…

…but it isn’t long before he’s pushed onto his back, spread flat against the thickly carpeted floor at Barty’s urging. All of the others are moving forward, too, gathering around the two of them as Barty starts to remove Regulus’ robes, and he recognises voices, and he can _almost_ recognise faces, but his head is heavy and it hurts so much to think…

“…would have thought you’d want first go,” one of them laughs, giving another of the Members a forward shove, moving him close enough for Regulus to see that the white mask is closely fitted against an _enormous_ nose, and that the shape of the mask twists to accommodate the sneer spreading across that Member’s upper lip.

He can hear Barty laughing softly next to him, whispering in a manner that is meant to be soothing, and he doesn’t _want_ to be soothed, he wants to know , ‘first go at _what_?’, but when Barty tells him to lie back and relax, he finds himself complying.

Amongst the circle, there’s another snigger and another shove, this one so violent that the black hood of the cloak that the Member is wearing falls back to reveal short, pale hair, and he can make out equally pale, watery eyes behind the mask. _This_ one doesn’t sneer, but what he does instead is almost worse, because he smiles nervously, kneeling between Regulus’ spread legs — legs that are pulled wide by Barty’s hands, and, and, and…

“Regulus? Are you awake?”

Just for a moment, he thinks he’s back in the nursery at home. The ceiling above him is almost identical, bewitched to mimic the night sky with its strewn stars and full moon glowing valiantly against the velvety darkness. When he first started at Hogwarts, he used to spend many a homesick night in the Great Hall, watching the Heavens as they appeared on _that_ ceiling.

It’s only for a moment, though, before he realises that this can’t be the nursery, because he hasn’t slept in the nursery in years, and the sky here is much smaller than the one at home.

This must be Sirius’ room.

“Regulus?”

“Mmm?”

“Just checking. There’s no need to get up, you stay there and rest.”

He twists upright, seeing Sirius next to him. “What happened?”

“You passed out earlier,” Sirius says with a smile. “I didn’t want to leave you before you’d woken up.”

“What? Where… Where are you going?”

“I need to find Remus.”

 _Lupin_. That triggers something in his memories, Lupin manhandling Sirius back at the Club, working him into position and then forcing him…

“I don’t… Is he… You’re not leaving me here, are you?”

“You’ll be perfectly safe, trust me. I need to find him before he does something he’ll regret.” _What, like hurting his boyfriend?_ “I’ve a fairly good idea of where he’ll have gone, and I -”

“What if he comes back?” he says, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. “What if he comes back when you’re not here? What if -”

“Ssh, Cat, it’s all right. This is my room, you’re in my bed. He won’t find you if you stay here.”

“What if he comes looking for you? What if he -”

“Regulus,” Sirius says, warmly and reassuringly. “He’d never come into my room unless I let him. _Never_. When Remus and I aren’t at home, the wards on the flat keep everybody else out. Even if Remus or I were here, the only people who could let themselves in are our friends from school, Peter and James. Oh, and James’ wife. You’re _safe_ here in this flat from everybody else, and you’re safe here in this room from Remus.”

“I don’t want you to go,” he says in a small voice, wriggling closer to his brother.

“I have to, Regulus. I have to talk to him. I need to tell him you’ll be staying with us. Don’t!” Sirius adds warningly when Regulus opens his mouth to object. “You’re in no condition to stay anywhere else, and I’m certainly not letting you go home.”

“What do you mean, not in any -”

“What do you mean, what do _I_ mean? What happened to your arm, Cat?”

“My arm?” he says stupidly.

Turning his head to glance at his arm, he notices for the first time that he’s wearing one of Sirius’ nightshirts instead of the robes he had on earlier. It also strikes him for the first time that his arm doesn’t hurt, but when he pulls the sleeve up to look at it, it glowers angry red under the cool light of the stars.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” Sirius says, carefully pulling the sleeve back down. “I don’t think I can cure it or remove it, but I’ve managed to take most of the pain away. When did this happen?”

“I don’t know,” he says, honestly.

“You must have _some_ idea. You didn’t have it the last time I saw you.”

“I’m not sure, exactly,” he says, trying hard to remember. “It could only have happened after my Induction, but I don’t -”

“After your _what_?” Sirius asks in a fierce whisper, looking mortified. “They _Inducted_ you, is that what you said? Does this mean that you’re a Member now?”

“I’m sorry,” he says automatically, because he can’t think of anything else to say.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?” Sirius asks urgently, sounding worried.

“Before?” he asks, trying not to sound distressed, and failing. “When could I have told you? You never answered – You never _got_ any of my letters. The first time Malfoy brought you to me, you wouldn’t listen to anything I said, you just kept telling me I’d be safe in London, and tonight… When could I have told you?”

“Cat…”

“I don’t remember all of it, but I remember Friday because that was when -”

“ – when those Muggle magazines were replaced with Portkeys,” Sirius says, with quiet understanding, getting up and walking away from him. “That was your petition, wasn’t it? That was your way of saying, ‘look what I can do, now let me join your club’.”

“I’m sorry,” he says again, wishing that Sirius didn’t look so angry and sad and disappointed all at the same time.

He remembers what Lupin told Malfoy earlier, how Sirius hasn’t eaten or slept properly, how Sirius hasn’t been home in days, because of some ‘stupid prank’. He was hoping that neither Sirius nor Lupin would find out that the stupid prank was his doing.

“Oh, Regulus,” Sirius breathes, still not looking at him. “I should have taken you with me when I left.”

“Was it… How bad was it?” he asks. “Was anyone killed?”

“Four people,” Sirius says, turning back to him with a crooked smile that might be meant to be reassuring but comes across as mocking. “That we know of, at least.”

“How?” He was so careful – he deliberately devised something that would cause as much chaos as possible, but without any fatalities.

“There are still twenty Muggles missing – we don’t know if it’s because of this, or because they went missing for other reasons. A whole family disappeared in Berkshire, so I doubt it had anything to do with your magazine unless all five of them picked it up at the same time.”

“Yes, but how did - ”

“I’m getting to that,” Sirius says. “Among the Muggles, Britain’s at war with the Soviet Republic. It’s not a _proper_ war,” Sirius continues, moving to sit on the edge of the bed again. “No troops have been committed or anything, but it’s still a war of sorts. Anyway, seven Muggles – again, seven that we know of – were Portkeyed into the Republic. Four of them were executed as spies.”

“Nobody was supposed to die,” he whispers. _Four. Four dead. After all that effort._

“Cat - ”

“But I had to do _something_ ,” he adds, needing Sirius to understand. He crawls over to the side of the bed, next to Sirius. “If you could see what they normally do to Muggles…”

“I’ve seen the results.”

“But you don’t see them _do_ it. When they kill someone, all you’ll see is an unmarked corpse, but when they _do_ it… It’s like they’re playing a game. They make the Muggles dodge the curses, only sometimes it’s the killing curse, and other times it’s just green sparks.

“There was a whole family of Muggles the last time – at least five of them, _that’s_ probably your missing family from Berkshire. They killed one of them first, just to show the others what the killing curse could do. Then they told the others that if they agreed to play, and if they played _well_ , they’d be allowed to go.”

“And did they?”

“One of them stopped after a bit. She was tired, and crying, and couldn’t keep jumping about to dodge the curse. They took her little brother and said that if she continued to play, they’d let him go.” Sirius doesn’t say anything, just watches him silently. “I don’t know what they did with him, but I’m sure they didn’t let him go.”

“You don’t know for certain?”

“I didn’t stay. I couldn’t…”

“Ssh, that’s not what I meant,” Sirius murmurs, moving off the bed to kneel on the floor in front of him. “You’re still just a baby. You shouldn’t have had to _see_ that, let alone - ”

“You said there are still twenty missing – what if you never find them? That’s twenty-four dead, when I could have just picked another family of five and -”

“Ssh,” Sirius murmurs again, reaching for his face and letting him rest his head on Sirius’ shoulder. “You didn’t mean to hurt anybody, that’s the difference. You’ve been in Slytherin so long, you’ve forgotten that the means are more important than the ends. And you _did_ mean well.”

“What about before?” he asks miserably. “I thought I was keeping Lupin from hurting you before, but I got that wrong, too, didn’t I? My _intentions_ might have been sound, but -”

“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong, Cat,” Sirius says, sounding ruefully amused. “You had no business seeing what you did tonight. You _promised_ me you’d stay where I left you until I came back for you, and then you -”

“He was hurting you!”

“He’s not always like this,” Sirius says, dodging the accusation. “You saw what he was like at school. That’s what he’s normally like – the gentlest, most considerate person you could ever meet.”

“You must be -”

“ _But_. But. Every now and then, he gets thrown a little off balance. It’s nothing for you to worry about, I know how to manage him, and he always apologises the next day, and he _always_ makes it up to me.”

“You must be _mad_ ,” he says, pulling his head away from Sirius shoulder and kneeling up on the bed.

“I am _not_ mad, Regulus,” Sirius starts to say, standing up to match his height. “I -”

“ _Listen_ to yourself! He always apologises? He always makes it up to you? He shouldn’t be hurting you in the first place! All hells, Sirius! After all your talk about how stupid I was to put up with Mother and everything she made me do, you can’t honestly expect me to believe that the choices you’ve made for yourself are any better! _This_ is where I’ll be safe? Living with you and… and _that_?”

“It’s not. All. The time,” Sirius says testily, almost as though he’s had to explain this before and is tired of it. “And he _does_ apologise, which is a start. When did Mother ever apologise for anything she made you do? It’s not all the time,” Sirius repeats. “And this time was worse than the others because I hadn’t seen him in nearly a week, and when he saw you, he thought I was going to leave him.”

“He started to force you before he even saw me,” he points out, unwilling to let Sirius change the facts to suit his story. “Does he do _that_ when he’s ‘off balance’, too?”

Sirius is quiet for a bit, rubbing his face and saying nothing until Regulus repeats his question.

“It’s not all the time,” Sirius says finally, as though saying those words will make everything better. “I know… I _know_ when he’ll start acting like this, and I can usually do something about it before he starts to get upset. He’s almost never hurt me before, because I can head it off before it gets to this.”

 _Upset! What an understatement. And he’s **almost** never hurt you before – that’s good, is it? You’re insane, you’re **mad** , how can you possibly expect me to believe that I’m any safer now than I was with the Members? How can you protect me? You can’t even protect yourself._

“When he’s like this, he needs me. He needs me so badly that it actually hurts him, and I couldn’t be there for him tonight. It drives him mad, the thought that I’m with Lucius – or worse, you – when he needs me as much as he does. If he can’t have me in time, then… Then that’s when things start to go wrong.”

“Why does he sell you to Lucius, then? If it bothers him so much. If it _hurts_ him so much,” he says contemptuously.

“He doesn’t want to do it. He hates even the idea of it.”

“Then why does he -”

“Because I ask him to. And he lets me – yes, _lets_ me – because he’ll do anything for me.”

“He lets… Wait, _you_ ask him to sell you? _Why_?”

“Because Lucius promised that he’d stay away from you if he could occasionally have me,” Sirius replies, with a brittle smile. “And I begged Remus to agree, so that you would be safe.”

He tries to see it from Lupin’s point of view, having to give Sirius up to Lucius in exchange for the knowledge that he, Regulus, would be spared. Lupin probably doesn’t even care that much what Lucius does to Regulus – this whole arrangement only works because Lupin cares about Sirius, and _Sirius_ cares about what Lucius does to Regulus.

“But… But that wasn’t… Malfoy lied.”

“Yes, he did, but Remus doesn’t know that yet. And that’s why I need to talk to him,” Sirius says, starting to frown. “Because he _doesn’t_ know, and -”

 _And when he saw me with you, he must have thought that you had lied to him as well…_

“But you said that he gets like this anyway, every now and then,” he says.

“No more than a dozen or so times a year,” Sirius says lightly, adding, “and only for one or two nights at a time. The rest of the time, he’s _fine_.” Sirius pauses, waiting for a response. Reaching forward, Sirius grabs him around the waist and pulls him closer, giving him a kiss on the forehead. “All right?”

“All right,” he breathes, snuggling in against his brother’s warm, reassuring weight.

“All right,” Sirius repeats, holding him close. “You stay here, while I look for Remus,” Sirius adds, as he detaches himself. “I won’t be long.”

“Why?” he asks automatically, tightening his grip. “You shouldn’t have to search for him. He should come home on his own if he _really_ loves you.”

“He _does_ really love me,” Sirius says with an amused smile, as if it’s a foregone conclusion.

“But I love you more,” he says. Sirius looks startled, the amused smile flickering and vanishing. “I love you _more_ than he does, more than he ever could.”

“You can’t know that,” Sirius starts to say slightly impatiently, making another attempt to walk away.

“I can. I do,” he adds, slightly disconcerted by the unconvinced expression on Sirius’ face. “I’ll _show_ you,” he decides, twisting into Sirius and pushing his brother back against the bed.

The last time they wrestled like this, Sirius was able to pin him easily, but the last time they did this, Sirius was one and a half times his size. _This_ time, they’re _much_ more closely matched. That, and Sirius is exhausted. It doesn’t take much effort to flatten Sirius against the mattress and mount him.

“Regulus, what are you - ” Sirius attempts, before Regulus covers his mouth with his own. Sirius turns his head away in order to break off the kiss, managing to pull free even though Regulus bites down on his lower lip. “ _Ow_ , that bloody hurt! Stop it,” Sirius growls, struggling in earnest now. He’s torn Sirius’ lip, and can taste the bright blood in his mouth.

 _Pure blood, like mine, exactly like mine, you’re the only one in the world with blood as pure as mine._

Sirius is the only person he’s ever wanted like this, but he’s trying to get away. Sirius isn’t supposed to struggle. Not with _him_ , not when he loves Sirius so much more than Lupin does.

 _You didn’t try to get away from him, why are you trying to get away from me? I love you more than he does, **more** than he ever can, why won’t you let me show you how much?_

“You like it, don’t you?” he says viciously, working his calves under Sirius’ hips so that his brother can’t get away, and clasping Sirius’ wrists in either hand so he can’t push him off. “You _like_ it when Malfoy ties you up, or when Lupin hits you.”

“I don’t like it,” Sirius pants, still determined to wriggle free. “I _hate_ it, Regulus. Why are you _doing_ this?”

“Maybe you do hate it,” he concedes, tightening his grip on his brother, “but it’s the only way to have you, isn’t it? You won’t let _anybody_ have a piece of you unless you’re forced to give it up.”

“Get _off_ me, Regulus, I don’t have time for this right now! I have to find him, he needs me,” Sirius says.

“I need you _more_ ,” he roars back, on the brink of tears, _again_. “I need you _more_ , you can’t go, you can’t leave me here on my own. Please, Sirius,” he whispers, worn out and unable to fight anymore. “ _Please_ stay with me.”

“Go to sleep, Cat,” Sirius murmurs soothingly, finally managing to work one of his hands free, and stroking Regulus’ cheek.

“No, I don’t…” he attempts muzzily. _I wasn’t tired before, I’ve slept more today than I ever have, why do I…_ “You’re doing this,” he realises, and this time it is Sirius who won’t let go. “I don’t want to! Stop putting me to sleep!”

If he sleeps, the nightmares will start again, with him naked on the floor, with Barty holding him down, and with a circle of Members watching, every one of them eager for their _turn_.

“Stop it, stop it, _stop_ it!” He tries to slap Sirius’ hand away, but Sirius is ready for him and has worked his other hand free. “ _Don’t_ ,” he cries out, as exhaustion sets in.

“It’s all right, Cat,” Sirius says, as he rolls them over so that Regulus isn’t pinning him to the bed anymore. “You’ve had an awful day, and you’re tired and confused. We’ll talk in the morning, all right?”

“I want to talk _now_ ,” he says, managing to get the words out around a yawn. “I don’t want to sleep. _I don’t want to sleep,_ ” he shrieks. “Don’t leave me here, please, Sirius, _please_ , don’t go without me. You said I’d be safe. _You promised me I’d be safe!_ ”

“Sleep, Regulus,” Sirius whispers, shifting the bedding to accommodate him and working a pillow under his head.

“ _Please_ ,” he begs, even as he settles into the bedding and relaxes against the pillow. “I don’t… _I don’t want it._ ”

“Sirius? Is everything all right?”

As sleep takes him, he doesn’t need to look up to know that it’s Lupin. He recognises the voice. More importantly, he recognises the expression on Sirius’ face when his brother turns towards the doorway.

Not apprehension.

Not fear.

Only _relief_.


	5. 5

_Into temptation, right where you belong_

He’s not sure how long he is asleep for – not long enough to dream, or remember the dream, certainly – but as he rouses, he can hear Sirius murmuring something about not wanting an explanation.

“I _do_ need to explain,” Lupin is saying. “I need you to forgive me. Or… Or to say you’re leaving me for Lucius. If you are. But… You can’t do that until I tell you what I – Until I tell you everything.”

As appalled as he is that Lupin has come crawling back after his earlier behaviour, Regulus knows better than to say anything. If he does, Sirius will put him back to sleep so that he can be dealt with later.

When there’s no immediate response to Lupin’s enquiry from Sirius, Regulus takes a chance and opens his eyes cautiously. He’s able to see the two of them, standing in the doorway.

The night sky that is charmed onto Sirius’ bedroom ceiling shines down silvery, pale moon- and starlight onto them. Both Lupin and Sirius are silhouetted at the entrance, with the much brighter hall lamps behind them, flinging their shadows onto the bed.

“There’s nothing for you to say,” Sirius says softly, his voice barely loud enough for Regulus to hear.

He has a sneaking suspicion that Sirius can tell he isn’t asleep anymore. The Depletion Charm that Sirius used to drain away his strength has worn off. There’s a limit to how often one person can be made to sleep like that – and Sirius had already used it on him twice before this last time. He’s probably only been asleep for a couple of minutes.

“I - ” Lupin looks up in alarm. “You’re not even going to give me chance to explain?” he whispers miserably.

“To expl- ” Sirius asks, sounding perplexed. “Oh _Remus_ , you stupid – There’s no need for you to explain anything.”

“But Sirius, I - ”

“I know what happened,” Sirius murmurs, his voice low and tense. “You needed to fuck. You couldn’t have me, so you had someone else.”

“More than one someone else. Four someone elses, actually,” Lupin says in a rush, glancing away as though he can’t bear for Sirius to see him. “Are… Are you going to leave me now?”

“No.”

“Are you angry with me?” Lupin asks in a small voice.

“ _No_ ,” Sirius says gently, and with such tenderness that Regulus’ heart aches, while his stomach heaves.

 _How can you possibly love **him**? After everything he just did to you?_

Lupin turns to look at him, frowning in disbelief. “This… This can’t be what you want. Or… Or do you want me to be with someone else, so that you’re free to spend more time with Mal- ”

“Stop talking,” Sirius says, moving closer to Lupin. Their faces are millimetres apart from one another, and Regulus has to really strain to hear what’s being said. “I don’t like what happened. I don’t like the idea of you with one someone else, let alone two or three or four of them,” Sirius says fiercely. “And if it had been on any other night than the one before F- ” Sirius pauses, before starting again, more softly than before. “If it had happened under…ordinary…circumstance, I _would_ be angry. And I _would_ leave you. But this is different.”

“I promised you I wouldn’t touch anybody else, but - ”

“And I promised _you_ that I would always be there for you on… On nights like this. And I wasn’t tonight. And that’s not your fault. And... I don’t blame you for anything.”

“But I hurt you, Sirius.”

“You can kiss it better.” Sirius has his back to him, but Regulus can hear the smile in his brother’s words. “Beside. You think it wouldn’t hurt me if you left? Or if you asked me to?”

 _Regulus_ notices that Sirius doesn’t deny that Lupin hurt him, even if Lupin doesn’t appear to.

“You’re staying?” Lupin exhales, as though he can hardly believe it.

“Of course I’m staying. I already told you I’m not leaving you. Not unless you order me to, and even then, I’d cling to your leg like a limpet until you got tired of trying to shake me off. Come here,” Sirius says, taking Lupin’s hand and leading him into his room.

“I wanted it to be you,” Lupin whispers, taking Sirius’ hand and allowing himself to be led closer. “I wanted so much for it to be you tonight. I almost didn’t agree to letting Malfoy have you.”

“I wanted you to be with me, too,” Sirius says, turning to face Lupin and walking backwards as he does. “Come and do me now.”

“But… Sirius, I - ”

“You know I never feel properly clean after I’ve been with Malfoy anyway. No matter how much I wash. Not until you take me and make me yours again.”

“Sirius, I _can’t_. I want to, but I’ve already – I couldn’t get hard if you paid me.”

Neither of them says anything for a while, and then Sirius laughs.

“Sweet fuck, but that’s perfect. It’s all right. I don’t think I could have stayed awake long enough for you to fuck me, anyway.”

“ _You’re_ not the one that needs to be awake,” Lupin points out.

Sirius laughs again and kisses Lupin as though nothing has happened. Not the past horrible week, or even just this awful, never ending night.

“I’ll kiss it better, I swear. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow morning,” Lupin promises. “And if Malfoy wants you again, he’ll have to - ”

“He can fuck off.”

Lupin looks at Sirius in surprise. “Do you mean that?”

“Yes. _Yes_ , I mean it. No more Lucius.”

“I always suspected – Fuck, Sirius. And your brother was in on it the whole time?”

“He didn’t know Lucius would use him to get to me, Remus. And Regulus never knew anything about our arrangement with Lucius.”

“But… Of course he knew. You wrote to him and told him. Didn’t you? The first time Malfoy asked to buy you, I told you that you should at least tell Regulus what you were putting yourself through for him, and you said - ”

“I did write to him, Remus, but my letters never reached him.”

“Then…” Lupin says, sounding even more confused. “What’s changed? How can we tell Malfoy to fuck off if Regulus is still in danger?”

“Lucius can’t hurt Regulus,” Sirius says, smiling. “I stole him away, see?”

Lupin tightens his grip on Sirius and pulls him closer, shifting slightly so that he is standing between Sirius and the bed.

“Your brother’s _here_?”

“I thought you- Didn’t you hear him when you came in?”

“I completely forgot about...” Lupin stops and looks embarrassed. “About you, Regulus Sorry if - ”

“It’s all right, he’s asleep. He’s been drugged with something that kept making him panic for no reason, so I Depleted him.”

It’s an effort to keep his eyes lightly closed instead of screwing them tightly shut as he wants to. _I wasn’t panicking for no reason_ , he thinks angrily.

“Why is– What are you doing, Sirius?”

“Unbuttoning your shirt, what does it look like I’m doing?”

“What for? It’s not as though I can fuck you now. Even if your brother _wasn’t_ asleep in your bed.”

“Nobody’s fucking anybody,” Sirius says. He can hear someone – he assumes it’s Sirius – climbing onto the bed, and pulling Lupin in as well. “I just want to feel your skin on mine. Come here.”

He can hear them kissing again, and risks opening his eyes slightly. Sirius is lying down on the other side of the bed – as far away as he can get from Regulus while still remaining on the bed – and Lupin is lying on top of him.

“Why is he here?” Lupin asks, again.

“Like I said. Regulus never got my warning,” Sirius says, running a hand through Lupin’s hair. “I wrote to him but Lucius’ elves intercepted my letter. All of the letters I wrote to him. And the same for all of the letters that Regulus wrote to me.”

Lupin frowns off into space as he considers this. “But… But if Malfoy went to that much trouble, why did he bring the two of you together at the Club?”

“He’d drugged Regulus – or thought he had – and managed to convince him that I was only a polyjuice copy of myself.”

“But why do it at _all_? After being so careful to keep the two of you from communicating with one another. Even if Regulus didn’t know who you were, you knew who Regulus was.”

“Remus…” Sirius says, biting at his lip worriedly.

“Don’t bite your lip,” Lupin says, running a finger along Sirius’ lip before lowering his head to kiss Sirius on the mouth.

 _Why **did** Malfoy do it?_ Malfoy might have managed to trick Regulus into thinking that Sirius wasn’t real, but Sirius would have known all along who Regulus was. _And went along with it, and stayed while Malfoy fucked me that first time… Why would he do that?_

“I think Malfoy wanted to change the rules,” Sirius says quietly. “He managed to get his hands on Regulus, and he said something about swapping the two of us.”

“Swapping…”

“He wanted me to go with him, and he implied that if I agreed, he’d leave Regulus alone.”

“What!”

He almost jumps out of his skin at the obvious violence in Lupin’s tone

“Remus - ”

“That’s what he promised the first time! That if I agreed to let him have you once a week, he would stay away from your brother as long as - ”

“Ssh, Remus, I know.”

“He can’t have you!”

“He can’t have Regulus either,” Sirius says. “I _had_ to bring him here, Remus. I tried to get Regulus to wait until the day after tomorrow, but he went to pieces. You should have seen him – it was like I asked him to catch a manticore with his bare hands. He’s been threatened by almost all of the members of that stupid Club, and that’s not all of it.”

Sirius’ voice drops below a whisper, making Regulus have to strain to hear it over the sound of his own breathing, as he says, “I examined him as soon as I got him here. He’s been forced, Remus. More than once, and I’m sure by more than one person. _Forced_. There are bruises on his arms and his legs where someone’s held him down, and he was bleeding in places he shouldn’t have been.”

 _But that... That was only a dream..._ His vision swims and he can see the circle of white masks, all staring down at him while someone pulls his robes open. _Just a dream. A horrible, **horrible** dream.._

“And as if that weren’t enough,” Sirius continues, in that same, surreally soft tone, “someone’s tried to mark him. The injury on his arm… I was almost physically sick when I touched it. The muscles under his skin were practically writhing with Dark Magic before I contained the mark to keep it from spreading.”

He tries very hard not to react, but he almost feels like vomiting. _A mark? On my arm? Who put it there? **When** was it put there?_ His arm has been hurting him for days, but up until this moment, it’s never occurred to him that it was anything more than an accident. And he can’t remember what was done to him.

“Can they use it to track him?”

 _No… They can’t. They **can’t**._

“I don’t know,” Sirius says.

 _It can’t be. Please. I only went along with what they wanted so that I could see you again. I didn’t know they’d mark me._

“Perhaps Malfoy was lying – again – about why he… Perhaps it’s a trap?’”

“It isn’t a trap,” Sirius says stubbornly.

“I didn’t say that your brother was part of it.”

“He doesn’t have anything to do with - ”

“Sirius - ”

“He isn’t part of it. He _isn’t_.”

“ _Sirius_ ,” Lupin says, sighing exhaustedly. “Why did Malfoy buy you for your brother to fuck?”

“Because he wanted to initiate Regulus into the - ”

“No, I mean…” Lupin pauses, as though searching for the right words before deciding that there probably aren’t any right words for asking what he wants to know. “I mean, why would Malfoy think that your brother wanted to fuck you? _Does_ your brother want to... Did you… Before, were the two of you ever…”

“Regulus and I have never done anything like that together. _Never_ ,” Sirius says firmly. “And if we had, I would have told you, Remus.”

He’s sure that Sirius is lying, but when he thinks about it, all Sirius has done is kiss him. Any time he’s tried to take things further, Sirius has evaded him, or put him to sleep, or simply run away from him.

“And he doesn’t want to – He only _thinks_ that he wants to fuck me, Remus. He’s young, he’s never had a girlfriend, he’s married and miserable... I’m probably the only person who’s said that I love him and he thinks…” Sirius’ voice drops below a whisper again as he says something that Regulus doesn’t hear.

Lupin laughs without any amusement, saying, “ _Everybody_ thinks they’re in love with you, Sirius.”

Sirius doesn’t say anything for a little while, as though he is unwilling to grace Lupin with a response.

“Remember when I ran away from home?” Sirius asks quietly. “I had you, and I had James and I had Peter, and Evans and McKinnon. All of you – especially _you_ \- helped me find my feet. Helped me hold it together long enough to finish my N.E.W.T.S. Loved me and helped me, when I was convinced I had nothing and nobody,” Sirius continues. “Regulus doesn’t have any of that, Remus.

“He doesn’t have a best friend or a boyfriend he can turn to. Not even _one_ friend that he can trust, like I could trust the five of you. Nobody who desires him because he’s brilliant, because he’s _him_ \- not like you did for me. Like you _do_ for me. He’s just a baby. Look at him,” Sirius urges, turning to do the same.

He closes his eyes to their scrutiny, not wanting to see Lupin’s expression.

“I know you think he’s spoiled and pampered and useless, but so was I once,” Sirius says.

“What do you mean ‘once’?”

“He’s just a baby,” Sirius repeats, ignoring the gibe. “If he’s confused, if he thinks he’s in love with me or even that he wants to fuck me, well, he’ll get over it eventually. He’ll find someone else, like I found you.”

 _I’m not confused,_ he thinks furiously. _I’ve wanted you for **years** …_

“But until he does… What if he still wants to fuck you?”

“Remus…”

“What if he does?”

“I just want him to be safe,” Sirius says. “Can he stay with us, here? Even if it means… Even if it means _that_?”

He can feel tears welling up in his eyes, and threatening to spill out even though he has his eyes shut tight. Even though he’d come close to forcing Sirius earlier, he doesn’t want to be something that Sirius merely endures for the sake of keeping him safe.

“Sirius...”

“Please, Remus.”

He hears Lupin drop his head down to Sirius’ shoulder and sigh.

“I’ve shared you with Malfoy for four years. Now I have to share you with your brother. When will I have you to myself?”

“Tonight. I’m all yours tonight.”

“Oh, fantastic. Lucky me. I get to fall asleep on top of you tonight, since I’m too tired to do anything else, and then in the morning, I get to share you with _him_. God, and it’ll be even worse than it ever was with Malfoy because your brother will always _fucking be here_. And he’s your _brother_. Doesn’t that bother you?”

“Are you saying... Are you saying he can stay?” Sirius asks, ignoring everything else Lupin has said.

“ _Sirius_.”

“Yes or no, Remus.”

“Yeah, he can stay,” Lupin concedes tiredly.

“ _Thank you_ ,” Sirius whispers. “Listen. It won’t be forever. Hey. Remus. Look at me, please. Re- What are you doing?”

“I’m going to sleep,” Lupin says. The bed shifts, suggesting that Lupin is climbing out of the bed. “In my room.”

“No, stay here.”

Lupin snorts. “Right. And have me be the first thing he sees when he wakes up? I don’t - ”

“You won’t be the first thing he sees. I’ll sleep in between the both of you. Stay, Remus.”

“It’s fine. You’re the one he needs, not me. I’ll sleep in my - ”

“You’re the one _I_ need. Come back here.” The bed shifts underneath him again, and there’s a _whump_ as Sirius pulls Lupin back into the bed.

 _Why can’t you want me like I want you? Why do you have to want **him**?_

And then he realises that he is just as bad as Lupin. And Malfoy, for that matter.

 _Because I was going to force you. Just like Lupin did, and like Malfoy did to you. Just like..._

He’s unable to keep from crying, and his even breathing hitches as he realises that he doesn’t even know who raped him. Not if it was more than one person, or more than one time, or more than one place.

“Is he - ” Lupin starts to say.

“He’s having a nightmare,” Sirius says.

He still has his eyes closed, so it comes as a surprise when Sirius’ hands feel at his forehead to check for fever.

“Can you get the Calming Draught from the cupboard? I don’t want him to be scared, even if it’s only in his sleep.” There is some shuffling and clattering, and then Sirius’ arms are around him, as Lupin leaves the room. “Don’t cry, Cat, don’t cry,” Sirius murmurs, rocking him soothingly. “Nobody’s going to hurt you. I promise.”

 _Was it a nightmare? Or was it real?_

“Was I really… Did they really… I didn’t want them touching me! Did they really hold me down and... And...”

“Ssh,” Sirius murmurs soothingly, rubbing his arm and pulling him close.

“I don’t - ” He has to stop to swallow away the lump in his throat before he can go on. “I don’t remember any of it.”

“It’s the potion.”

“But I didn’t drink the potion this time!”

“It stays in your system for days, Cat. It lowers your inhibitions and the memories don’t come back for a while. But they _do_ come back eventually.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m... familiar with their methods,” Sirius says, smiling crookedly.

“Did they do it to you, too?” he whispers, realising that the only reason Sirius can be so calm about this, and the only reason Sirius can think that Regulus is panicking over nothing, is if Sirius has seen worse.

 _Or had worse done to him._

“Did they do it to you?” he asks again, and this time Sirius nods. “And you went along with it because of... because of me?”

“Listen to me. None of this is your fault, all right? There’s no need to cry. You’ll remember something eventually, and we can use it to go after whoever it was that did this to you. I’ve already owled James and Peter, and they’re coming over tomorrow so that we can decide what happens next. Between the four of us, there isn’t anything we can’t do.”

“You mean the five of us,” he says hesitantly, watching Sirius’ expression carefully. “You and Lupin and Potter and Pettigrew. And _me_.”

~~*~~

 _The guilty get no sleep, In the last slow hours of morning  
Experience is cheap, I should have listened to the warning_

It’s the same dream again – _no, not a dream, Sirius said it was real_ – in the Club, with the circle of Members – _not Members, Death Eaters_ – in their white masks. Even with the disguise, he can make out Malfoy – the pure, brilliant white of the mask can’t disguise the shape of Malfoy’s pointed face.

Someone is pulling his legs apart. Not just Barty, but he doesn’t recognise the other person. And the light haired one, with the clear, pale eyes is starting to remove his robe, and then Barty and whoever the other person is stand up, hauling his legs into the air, and there are pillows being shoved under his back, and then –

\- he can’t _breathe_ , he’s drowning, choking, and -

“Wake up, sleepy head,” Sirius says, lifting the pillow off his face and grinning down at him. When he sees the expression on Regulus’ face, Sirius looks concerned. “Another nightmare?”

“Not a nightmare. You said it was real,” he says, sitting up and gasping for air. “What were you trying to do, smother me?”

“You wouldn’t wake up. And I remembered that this always used to work, when you were little,” Sirius says, shrugging. It’s the closest thing to an apology he’s going to get. “How are you feeling?”

“I don’t know,” he says at once, realising that it’s true.

Sirius smiles kindly. “Think you can eat breakfast?”

“What are you having?” he asks, sitting up and looking around the room again in the light of day. It’s tiny. The bed takes up most of the available space, and the rest is crammed with books, parchment, ink bottles and quills. Clearly, Sirius’ room also doubles as the study.

“What do you fancy?” Sirius asks.

 _You._

“What have you g- ” he starts to ask, before covering his mouth as he yawns.

Someone knocks at the door.

“Come in, Remus,” Sirius says, without turning around.

“I wanted to know whether I should make – Ah, I see you’re up,” Lupin says. After being talked about and talked around, it is odd to come face to face to with Sirius’ boyfriend. “I’m making crepes for breakfast, Regulus. Would you like some?”

“I – Yes, thanks,” he manages, a little unnerved at being addressed directly by Lupin.

 _It’s not your crepes I want. It’s your Sirius, and you **know** it._

“Need any help?” Sirius asks Lupin.

“No,” Lupin says, looking away from Regulus at last and smiling at Sirius. “I can manage breakfast on my own. I’ll call when it’s ready.”

As if it weren’t obvious before, it is now clearer than words that for all Sirius’ reluctant concessions, the only way Regulus can ever have a piece of him is if Lupin permits it.

“Did you mean it? When you said that I could stay here?”

He doesn’t imagine that Lupin’s room is much larger than this one. _Where would you put me, if I were to stay?_

“I don’t know, Cat. Am I in the habit of saying things I don’t mean?” Sirius asks, slightly testily.

“That wasn’t how I meant it,” he says, more calmly than he feels. “You don’t want me the way I want you.”

For a long moment, Sirius looks as though he is trying to think of a way to deny it, but in the end, he simply says, “No. I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I won’t change my mind.”

He snorts in disbelief. “You mean that you’re hoping that I might change mine.”

“You’ve been drugged. I’m still not certain exactly what they’ve made you drink, but it’s interfered with so much of your judgement. You seemed to think yesterday was Monday, but today’s Thursday.”

“I beg your pardon? It can’t be – on Sunday, I came home from the Ball and slept and then on Monday, I went to Lucius so that we could - ”

“On Wednesday, Cat. Not Monday.”

“You’re saying I slept for four days?”

“It appears that way,” Sirius says, clutching the pillow tightly. “They gave you something to remove your inhibitions, and it did its job. I mean, you’ve always been a brat,” Sirius says fondly, “but you weren’t usually prone to bursting into tears at the drop of a hat. And you were far too well mannered to throw tantrums like a toddler or demand things you had no right to or - ”

“Yes, all right, I get the idea,” he says, in part relieved that he can attribute his behaviour to the potion.

 _Oh yes, Regulus Black, you’re **far** too well mannered to throw tantrums like a toddler or demand things you’ve no right to, or to try and force your brother. _

“So you can see why I want to wait until you’re in your right mind before - ”

“Whatever it was they gave me didn’t make me want you,” he says quickly, finally catching on to what Sirius is trying to say. “All it did was give me the courage to tell you.”

“We don’t _know_ what they gave you, Regulus.”

“You said you were familiar with their methods.” Sirius looks away. “I haven’t forgotten that you said that. And besides. I wanted you before they gave me anything. How do you think Malfoy knew how I felt about you in the first place? I put it all in one of the letters I wrote you,” he says, moving closer to Sirius and resting his head on his brother’s shoulder. “ _Before_ anybody gave me anything to interfere with my anything.”

Sirius’ lips twitch as though he wants to smile.

“I love you,” he says softly, pressing against his brother insistently so that Sirius lies down on the bed. “Did you mean it, when you said I could stay?” he asks again, lying down next to Sirius and resting his head on Sirius’ chest.

“I don’t say things I don’t mean,” Sirius replies, equally softly. “You can stay, Regulus. For as long as you need to. And if that turns out to be forever, then that’s all right too.”

“Even though I want you?” he asks, tentatively resting one of his hands on Sirius’ thigh.

“Even though you want me,” Sirius says with a smile.

“Will I be allowed to have you?” Sirius’ expression doesn’t change, but he shifts his grip on the pillow so that he’s holding it with one hand and he uses his other hand to remove Regulus’ hand from his leg. “That’s a ‘no’, then. Fucking hell, Sirius. You won’t even let me kiss you?”

Sirius swats him in the face with the pillow, laughing. “Maybe after you’ve brushed your teeth.”

**Author's Note:**

> I still aspire to complete this work. One day. In the meantime, all comments and kudos are appreciated and treasured -- even (especially?) on a fic as old as this one!


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